Starting a blog may seem complicated, but overall it is pretty easy. If you are interested in having a blog for you or your business and are interested in owning your blog’s domain name, rather than going through blogger.com or blog.com, here are a few steps you can take. Read the rest of this entry »
The other day I was at a women’s conference and had the privilege to be asked what I do for work. It was exciting, but the problem I have with this question is trying to figure out the answer. I have an inner turmoil. Do I tell them that eSilverBullet is an Internet marketing company and leave it at that or do I go into a lengthier detail about the products that we provide? Read the rest of this entry »
Keywords are vital for your website. They help potential customers locate your website through search engine searches. It’s like a trail that leads traffic right to your site. Once you have chosen your website keywords, next step is buying your domain.
Let’s say you have a company that sells an extremely effective lice killing product. Your top keyword phrase is, “How to kill head lice.” FYI: Google weights a domain name more heavily than just about any other single item. With this in mind, it is important to write a domain name with your keywords in it, such as howtokillheadlice.com. If it’s available, buy it. If not, use one of your other keyword phrases for a domain. Get your keywords in the domain! Read the rest of this entry »
Being more involved with Internet marketing, I find myself changing simple habits. For instance, I use search engines more effectively now. Instead of writing long phrases, I’ve changed my strategy and now choose concise words to find what I am looking for. Even though I have a better idea of what keywords to put for a product search, I still run into walls.
Last year a family member handed us a little camcorder tape. They recorded my wedding and were kind enough to gift the footage. The problem was we didn’t have a camcorder, and finding a way to look at the video was futile. So, the tape sat in my drawer for over a year. I’m a little slow on the upkeep. Read the rest of this entry »
On my personal time I blog. I remember going to an Internet marketing class and there I was introduced to Google Analytics. It changed my world. Why? Well, instead of wondering if people visited my site, I could actually see. It was fun to go into my dashboard and find out how many people visited, where they visited from and how long they stayed. I’ll admit, I haven’t received much of a following, but that’s fine by me. I am happy when anyone comes and reads. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you ever heard of a Saab? I hadn’t, that is until I married a Saab fanatic. Now I hear about Saabs at least two or three times a day. What is it? It’s a car that was originally made in Sweden and was bought by General Motors in the ‘90s. That about sums it up for me, but definitely not for my husband. Read the rest of this entry »
Those of us doing business in Utah realize what a great business environment we have here. We’re full of entrepreneurial activity. We have supportive government leaders, universities and other organizations. Businesses are open and collaborate with each other. And I believe we are seeing more and more positive press from outside the state on this issue.
So why don’t more companies locate here? And why is it sometimes hard to recruit talent to this state? Richard Nelson, president of the Utah Technology Council (UTC), believes there are two words that answer that question: Alcohol and Mormonism. And he is quick to point out that those are misconceptions which, if overcome, will go a long way toward convincing the rest of the country what we here in Utah already know: Utah is a great place to live, play, work and build a successful business.
So to help set the record straight, UTC has put out a couple of videos showcasing non-native Utahns debunking the myth that you can’t get a drink here, and that those pesky Mormons will spend all their time trying to convert you.
I’m interested in getting thoughts on these from people who haven’t lived in Utah. What do you think?
When I was in high school, my neighbor’s dad paid one of my friends to take her to a school dance. I always wondered whether she knew what her dad had done, and if so, whether she enjoyed the date less because of it. They didn’t go on a second date, and I’ve maintained that you can’t genuinely pay for people to like you. Apparently, the world of social media is proving me wrong.
Fast forward 20 years from my high-school days. Businesses are now trying to figure out how to capitalize on social media. Companies large and small are tripping all over each other trying to get Twitter followers or to get people to “like” them on Facebook. But what is interesting is how businesses are paying for those.
Last week I attended a Utah Technology Council forum where Randy Scott of SnappConner PR showed us a statistic that 75 percent of all Facebook “likes” are a result of paid ads.
And then there are the consultants. In June I attended the Internet Retailer show in San Diego. There was booth after booth of new businesses (some a few months old) that were talking about how, for a fee, they could get people to “like” us on Facebook. It struck me as funny that there were grown people in business attire talking about paying to get people to like you; but they were completely serious. Such is the state of business in the social world. They even had a new word for it: Social Commerce (well, maybe not so new, since it has been attributed to Yahoo! coining it in 2005).
Between the ads, the consultants and the promotions (e.g. “If you get 100 of your Facebook friends to like us, we’ll give you a free iPod Nano!”), it makes you wonder whether people actually are fans of a particular business, or they are just willingly giving away part of their social credibility in hopes of landing some swag.
I’m not saying companies shouldn’t have followers or fans. But given a choice between a thousand fake fans and a hundred actual customers, I’d go with the later. Same as in high school: I’d rather go to the dance with someone who genuinely wants to be there with me.
A few weeks back I sat down with Dave Oldham, CEO of O-CODES. Dave and I have both worked at companies that built software products for newspapers to track their display and classified ads. We experienced firsthand the frustration advertisers can have: They know offline advertising works, but they wish they could track the effectiveness the same way they can with online advertising.
Dave’s company is doing more to bridge the online-offline ad-tracking gap than any company I know. In the entrepreneurial world, we call this “disruptive technology.”
Simply put, o-codes are a way of attaching a trackable online component to an offline ad. Media companies can use o-codes to upsell their advertisers. So an advertiser running a TV ad, radio ad, magazine ad or billboard sign can add a number that viewers/listeners can text for a discount. It is kind of like a digital coupon. The advertisers can also choose to use QR codes in lieu of text numbers.
Even though advertisers still won’t know exactly how many purchases came as a result of the ads they ran (not all viewers that text the code will buy, and not all that see the ad and buy will text for the discount), they can take an instant pulse of whether that medium is the one they should be using for their ads. So if they are running the same ad on five different cable channels, they’ll know they can consolidate to a single channel if they find a much higher percentage of viewers texting the code from that channel instead of the others.
With traditional media companies feeling like they are constantly fighting against online media for ad dollars, this is one way they can use online technology to enhance the value that their bread-and-butter offline products are providing.
Alan Hall, a giant in Utah’s entrepreneurial and investing communities, likes to say that CEOs should spend 30 percent of their time talking to their customers. It makes sense on one level, but I still wondered whether I would regret giving my cell number out to 7,000 people.
I’ve written before about companies that try so hard not to be contacted. Maybe it is my background as a newspaper executive–where news companies are so transparent that they report on themselves, both with good news, but particularly with bad–but I’ve always felt that companies have the responsibility for earning the trust of their customers.
So in March, right after we acquired some software products for our suite of tools, I sent a personal email to the thousands of customers who were now eSilverBullet customers. I informed them of the acquisition, that they wouldn’t see a change in their level of customer support, and to call me personally if they had any questions or problems during the transition.
I think most of my colleagues thought I was crazy. I hoped I wouldn’t be swamped with calls, but I honestly had no idea what the response would be. I just knew that acquisitions can be tricky, transitions can be messy, and despite everyone’s best efforts, disruptions happen. And no matter how many people were involved in the acquisition (a lot), I was ultimately responsible for the success of it.
So I put my number in an email and sent it out. I’m glad I did.
Rather than being hit with a deluge, I heard from a handful that had specific concerns. We were able to work through each of those concerns in a hurry, and as a result, I believe we have a stronger relationship with those customers, and in a few cases, a better product. And it also gave me a chance to talk to some customers that I probably never would. I appreciated getting their take on our products and how they help their online businesses grow.
Although no transition is seamless, I feel like this one has been pretty smooth for us. And I believe honesty and transparency have helped with that.
By: Colette M. Williamson