How to Use Google Alerts to Track Your Online Marketing

Google Alerts are a great tool for tracking your online marketing campaigns. They let you know what content Google is finding. Additionally, they can provide insight into what content is not being found (because you will not see this type of content in your Google Alerts) so you can adjust your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts accordingly.

What does a Google Alert track?
You can track content that Google has found including:
1. Blogs – Google should pick up posts from your own blog as well as posts from other bloggers who are talking about your company, products and services. (Tip: If Google is not picking up your blog posts you will need to optimize them for your keywords.)
2. Press Releases and News Stories – When you send out a press release, it can be picked up by news feeds all over the internet. Google alerts allow you to see the scope of the exposure you are getting. (Tip: If your press releases are not getting picked up by Google, make sure they are optimized for your keywords.)
3. Website Content – Whether you are optimizing pages of your own site for search engines or you are actively seeking in bound links to your site, Google will let you know when it finds new content.

What keywords should I track?
At a minimum, you should be tracking:
1. Your company name
2. Your product or service names
3. Your personal name (if relevant)
4. Your competitor company and/or product names

To sign up for Google Alerts, visit:
http://www.google.com/alerts

For more information on the types of Google Alerts available, visit:
http://www.google.com/support/alerts/bin/static.py?page=faq.html&hl=en

Dawn Chiu (DQ)

Inland Empire Race for the Cure®

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®

Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Promenade Mall In Temecula

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer. These events celebrate breast cancer survivorship and honor those who have lost their battle with the disease. The largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world, the Komen Race for the Cure® Series has grown from one local Race with 800 participants in Dallas in 1983 to a series of more than 120 Races with more than 1.5 million participants this year alone. Funds raised during the Komen Race for the Cure® Series support the Komen vision of a world without breast cancer. Up to 75 percent of the net income from each Race stays in the community to fund local breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment projects. A minimum of 25 percent of the net income from each Race supports the Komen Award and Research Grant Program, which funds groundbreaking breast cancer research.

For more information or to register visit: http://komenie.org/

Orange County Race for the Cure®

17th Annual Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®

September 28, 2008

at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, CA

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® Series raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer. These events celebrate breast cancer survivorship and honor those who have lost their battle with the disease. The largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world, the Komen Race for the Cure® Series has grown from one local Race with 800 participants in Dallas in 1983 to a series of more than 120 Races with more than 1.5 million participants this year alone. Funds raised during the Komen Race for the Cure® Series support the Komen vision of a world without breast cancer. Up to 75 percent of the net income from each Race stays in the community to fund local breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment projects. A minimum of 25 percent of the net income from each Race supports the Komen Award and Research Grant Program, which funds groundbreaking breast cancer research.

For more information or to register visit: http://ockomen.org/

The Importance of Color in Branding and Advertising

Everyone knows The Golden Arches. My guess is that even folks in Zimbabwe recognize this descriptor for McDonald’s. But McDonald’s yellow (and red) branding was no accident. The fact is, there’s been much research to support the influence colors have on us, both emotionally and physically.

People naturally respond to color in three dimensions:
Hue: Pure spectrum colors, such as red, blue or yellow.
Saturation: The intensity of a hue (richness).
Value: Lightness and darkness.

Color is extremely complex and can also have many influences. How often have you questioned a color value only to run into a different opinion based on the surrounding environment? Is beige a warm color or a slight grey cool color when viewed under different lighting conditions?

Studies have shown that bright warm colors (red, orange and yellow) are known to stimulate excitement and generate activity. This is why kids toys are often packaged in these colors. In order to imply speed and efficiency, most fast-food branding consists of these bright colors as well.

Warm colors can also cause a different response based on the value.
Restaurants that want to convey comfort will choose deep warm colors, such as burgundy or burnt orange to increase longevity – which in turn increases the chance of ordering additional treats. Coffee, dessert anyone?

On to the cooler side of things, ever wonder why performers wait in a designated area called The Green Room? Light cool colors (green, blue) are known to have a calming effect.

We associate green to grass and the outdoors. Blues are representative of the sky and ocean. With these built-in instincts to understanding color, it’s no surprise that many health and beauty products apply these colors to their branding efforts.

These same cool colors displayed in a deeper value represent another meaning as well.
Subdued blues, for instance, are considered to be professional and trustworthy. Financial institutions often use blue for this reason. Many uniforms are also in a dark blue, such as those used by the police. Deeper greens are associated to wealth and quality; hence the color of money.

Given these implications, it’s important to understand that color plays a critical role in memory recall, which makes color consistency in branding a critical necessity.

The examples above only touch on the fundamentals of color and psychology. Every good designer should understand these basics and apply the best colors needed for their products and target markets.

Jennie Quimbita (JQ)

How To Measure Your Website Traffic

Most web hosts today offer web traffic reports as part of your hosting package. Contact your host today if you don’t know where to find these reports. Web traffic reports are a critical part of every marketing campaign – both online and offline. In addition to telling you how many people visited your site, traffic reports can tell you how visitors found your site and how they are using it when they get there.

How many site visitors do you get in a month?

It is important to look at the number of visitors instead of the number of hits. The number of hits represents all files loaded by your website and includes pages, images and other files. The number of visitors will tell you how many people viewed your site. Most traffic reports will break this down further to tell you how many of these visitors were repeating visitors.

Monthly Web Traffic

You should also be able to see a graph of traffic over time. Most peaks in traffic will be credited to a marketing/advertising campaign you executed – whether it was an electronic newsletter that went out, a tradeshow/event you attended, a direct mail campaign that was sent out, an advertisement you ran in a magazine, etc.

Website Statistics

How are visitors finding your site?

Good web traffic reports will show you how visitors are finding your site. This information can be found in the “Referrers”, “Search Engines”, “Search Terms/Phrases” section of your report.

Referrers are other sites that link to your site. For example, Q2 Interactive Marketing and Design is a member of NAWBO Orange County and we have a listing in their member directory. When someone clicks on the link in our NAWBO listing to arrive at the Q2 website, it shows up as a referrer on our web traffic reports. This is a great tool for tracking the effectiveness of your directory listings.

There should also be a section in your traffic reports that tells you which search engines are sending you traffic. You can see if your traffic is mostly coming from Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL or any of the other search engines. In addition to the name of the search engine, you can see the actual search terms and phrases visitors are typing in to find your site.

How are visitors using your site when they get there?

The reports will show you which pages get the most views. Some reports will go further to show you exit pages (the last page someone viewed on your site) and paths visitors took through your site.

If your website is not generating business it is important to determine if you aren’t getting much traffic or if your website is just not converting visitors to customers. If you are getting a lot of traffic, but not a lot of customers from that traffic, it may indicate that visitors can’t find the information they are looking for or your call to action is not clear.

Dawn Chiu (DQ)

Plastic bags vs. canvas bags

They die after ingesting plastic bags which they mistake for food

Less than 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled.

“There’s harsh economics behind bag recycling: It costs $4,000 to process and recycle 1 ton of plastic bags, which can then be sold on the commodities market for $32” – Jared Blumenfield.

Plastic Bags vs. Canvas Bags

The following information is provided to help you decide if you prefer plastic or canvas bags.

• Plastic bags are made of polyethylene (a thermoplastic made from oil) – canvas bags are not.

• Plastic bags increase foreign oil dependency – canvas bags do not.

• Plastic bags are light-weight and get blown around – canvas bags do not.

• Plastic bags kill 100,000’s marine life annually – canvas bags do not.

• Plastic bags are banned in some parts of the world – canvas bags are not.

Plastic Bags find their way into the sea via drains and sewage pipes.

If you wish to find out more please visit:
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

Photos captured from PoconoGreen video.

We encourage any additional comments or helpful tips on any environmental issues.

Can you identify your target market?

Lets say that you are a plastic surgeon and 90 percent of your business is generated from women ages 24-50. Would it be wise to spend marketing dollars on placing an ad in a men’s magazine? Unless the campaign is geared to encourage males to convince women to use this service, the chances of seeing a return on your investment are very slim.

Many organizations, when asked “who is your target audience?” will answer, “everyone.” Although we would all like to think that our products or services will be desired by all, it is unrealistic to try and target “everyone.” Fact is, targeting everyone isn’t targeting at all.

In the cases where your audience is vast, it’s usually best to create a campaign for each segment.

To define your target audience, start by answering these following points:

• Gender
• Age Range
• Income Level
• Education Level
• Marital Status
• Geographic Region

You will also want to establish the attitude of your audience toward your product or service:

1. Why do customers use your product or service?
2. What makes it different from your competitors?
3. What special features interest your target market?
4. Is your product or service a need or a luxury?
5. How will your target market find you?
6. Who or what influences your target market’s decisions?
7. What are the competitors offering?
8. How are your competitors positioned?

These are just a few of the elements that will help you target your audience and create a successful, cost-effective marketing/advertising campaign.

Jennie Quimbita (JQ)

Get Connected!

When I received my B.S. in Information and Computer Science I thought the only networking I would be doing would involve cables and computers. Now as a business owner I have come to realize the importance of Social/Business Networking.

Through networking we have made many valuable connections that have provided us the resources needed to continue both our professional and our personal growth. We have met partners, clients, vendors and friends.

In our experience, organizations that provide face-to-face meetings and events have allowed us to form strong personal relationships. We have also seen the advantage offered by online business networking sites because those allow us to meet people in other areas that we probably would not meet otherwise.

Some resources we have found valuable include:

1. National Association of Women Business Owners – Orange County (NAWBO-OC).
2. OC Metro Business Network
3. LinkedIn
4. Local Chamber of Commerce
5. Alumni Associations
6. Industry specific professional organizations
7. Professional organizations specific to your ethnic or religious background

Dawn Chiu (DQ)

Don’t get locked out of your website!

Often times the company that designs and develops your website will register your domain and setup your hosting package for you. While this can be of great service to you, make sure they are listing you as a contact on the accounts and providing you with all usernames and passwords.

What happens if your consultant moves and you are no longer in contact? Or if you are working with a web company that goes out of business?

If you are not listed as a contact on the accounts, you will not be able to access them without going through a long process to prove your identity and ownership of the site should you need it.

Here are 4 things you need to know about your website to make sure you have full control over it

1. Your username and password for your domain registrar. As long as you are listed as a contact on the account you should be able to request this information at any time. To see who is listed on your domain, you can do a “who is” lookup on any domain registrar’s site. Network Solutions and GoDaddy are 2 of the popular domain name registrars. You need this information if you are ever going to change hosts. You will have to login and change the DNS with your registrar in order to move your site to another host.
2. Where is your website hosted? Ideally, you will have FTP information (host, username, and password) to the web server your website is on. This information can also be requested at any time as long as you are a contact on the account that is setup with the hosting company. The “who is” lookup may tell you who your host is if you are unsure. You need this information to make any changes to your site or to copy the files to a new host.
3. If your website uses a database, you will need to know the username and password. You want to make sure you can get into the database to make any changes in the future or if you need to move your site to a different host for any reason.
4. The administrator username/password to manage your email addresses. Most hosts now offer a web based email administration as part of your hosting package. This will allow you to add/modify/delete email accounts as necessary. This is important to have if you are changing hosts so you can make sure you setup all email accounts with the new host. If you don’t setup the new accounts, you may stop receiving email!

Dawn Chiu (DQ)

Marketing in a Recession: Making the most out of your marketing budget

Part 2 of 2
1. Focus on your target market.
You would not create and ad selling ice to Eskimos in Alaska, unless they were your target audience.
With smaller budgets to market, it is crucial that every dollar spent on advertising be well spent.

2. Manage your leads.
Many companies do well in acquiring leads but many do not maintain and nurture them.
Whether a lead is generated from a trade show event or an email newsletter, etc., it is wise to follow up immediately. Do not assume just because they are aware of your brand that your product or service will be top of mind.

3. Increase relationships with your existing clients.
It is a well known fact that it costs more money to market to new clients then to existing ones. Create more targeted campaigns. It can be as simple as starting out with a email campaign which includes a survey regarding your brand’s products or services.

4. Reinforce your brand’s attributes to existing and new clients.
Sales and marketing teams should be working together with one consistent message. It is important that all marketing and advertising have a cohesive look and feel as well as message. This applies to online communication as well as print medium. Integrated marketing is a key component to increasing brand awareness.

5. Build partnerships and alliances.
Since consumers are less willing to take risks during this period, it may be helpful to tap into your partners existing clients and cross-sell each others product or services. Many people also have less time to shop around and prefer to find one resource for all their needs.

Jennie Quimbita (JQ)