Akron Ohio Marketing Firm

June 3, 2009 | 1 Comment

If you live in Akron Ohio and are looking for a Marketing Firm, do not start out looking for someone selling themselves as a marketing firm.

Instead, understand what you want and find a specialist in that area.  For example, there are some great Akron Ohio Marketing Firms that do many things very well.  But a marketing firm that does everything is either going to be looking for big clients with big budgets - or they are not going to be good at everything that they do.

That is why knowing what you want to achieve is important before you start shopping around for a marketing firm.  If you are looking for a web and SEO expert, then Buzzoodle is the best choice.  If you are looking for lead generation via the web, Buzzoodle is the best choice.

If you are looking for a specialist in Direct mail or print, Buzzoodle is a terrribe choice.

It is good to work with someone locally.  In fact, I am writing this post just ten minutes before running off to see one of my local, Akron based clients.

But before you pick a local marketing firm, make sure you know what you want and make the firm prove to you that they have the skills and expertise to get the outcome you desire.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Marketing ROI, Small Business 

Blog Writing Service

May 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Did you know that the Buzzoodle Inbound Marketing tool actually has three levels, and the upper two levels include a blog writing service?

While inbound marketing is probably the most effective and profitable marketing that I have ever seen, it is also one that does not always pay off - usually because the business thinks it can write articles regularly, but they fail to make it a priority and end up with little in the way of lead generation.

That is why we added the blog writing service to the program.  It does not mean that you will not want to do any of the writing yourself, but it means that if you get busy for a while, you can be sure that someone is writing on your business blog and getting you results, even if you are focusing on something else.

If you buy a content marketing/inbound marketing solution from anyone, remember that it is not the software or the website that gets results, it is the regular production of high quality content that your target market will find valuable.

A blog writing service is essential to make sure you have the consistency and focus to produce your blog articles that will generate leads for you.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Make Money with Wordpress

May 14, 2009 | 2 Comments

Wordpress is the best content management system in the world.  Not because it has the most features, but because it is easy to set up, has great plugins, is open source (free), flexible, customizable and gets great search engine results.

Here are several ways to make money with Wordpress.

  1. Affiliate Sales - You can sell affiliate products via your Wordpress blog.
  2. Membership Site - Make Money with a Wordpress Membership Site
  3. AdSense - You may not make a fortune, but over time you can make money with Google Adsense.
  4. Sell MLM Products - You can use the Wordpress site to generate leads for any product.
  5. Product Sales - Wordpress gets the search engine results and you can sell products on the side.
  6. Advertising - People do pay for advertising once you have a decent page rank and traffic.
  7. Ebay - Make Money with your Wordpress blog by promoting anything that you are selling in another place, like eBay or Craigslist.
  8. Wordpress Design and Hosting - Once you become talented at Wordpress, you can use your skills to host and design wordpress sites for businesses.  Since you start with a good template, you do not need to be a designer from scratch.

There are many other ways to make money with wordpress.  Only a few short years ago it seemed irresponsible to tell clients to use Open Source.  Now I think it is irresponsible to NOT use open source, like Wordpress, unless you have a very special need.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Lead Generation with Business Blogs

April 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment

People set up business blogs thinking that somehow the blog will help them with their business.

However, it is important to remember that business blogging software is only a software system to manage your articles.  You need to write regularly around topics that are important to your target audience.

If you do this well, then you will experience some traffic to your business blog.

But traffic does not make you money.

You need to have a strategy to either make money via affiliates and advertising, or you need to do lead generation for your business.

A lot has been written about how to generate affiliate income in this way.  But what is less often written about is how to create real leads for your business from a business blog.

Here are some ways to do lead generation.

  1. Download a white paper - Offer free white papers or reports to visitors in exchange for their contact information.
  2. Autoresponders - You can use autoreponder tools to create automatic email courses or sales funnels.
  3. CRM Integration - If you use a good CRM, it will have web forms.  You can use these forms on your business blog to invite people to schedule a free consultation or demo.
  4. Social Media - Make following you in Twitter, FaceBook or LinkedIn easy.  These people will keep getting regular messages from you if you use the tools, and some may become leads eventually.
  5. Webinars - Invite people to sign up for your webinar or teleseminar.
  6. Video Download - Very common now - people will happily add an email to a form to watch a video with a great tip or secret in it.

There are many more ways to do lead generation with your business blog software, but these are some of the most common.  Just remember, when you get a business blog set up, that is your starting point for lead generation and writing.  It is not the final product.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Small Business 

Corporate Blog Software - How is it different?

April 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment

If you are a small busines you may be thinking about doing some business blogging.

Do you want a free blog, a traditional blog you host yourself or do you want to invest in corporate blogging software?

Before you even start thinking about your corporate blogging platform, you will want to consider what goals you want to accomplish with your business blog.

The mistake people make with new media tools is that they hear they should have a business blog, they should use twitter or facebook, they should - they should.

It certainly does not hurt to go set up a facebook and twitter account.  I would even suggest setting up a free blog or two, depending on your time.  However, you need to really have a strategy around these things if you are going to use them for business purposes.

And a clear goal.  By goal, I do not mean the number of followers you have.

I mean the actual amount of money you will make and how your social media strategy will funnel the right people to the right products and make income for you.

This is important.  If you are not expecting anything from it up front, why would you invest in corporate blogging software solution?  Just go with a free business blogging option.  Probably more than half your visitors will not know the difference.

But did you want to make money with your blog?

If you expect to get something out of your corporate blog you are going to need to set up a blog and use it with specific goals in mind.  Or, you can hire a professional business blogging company that will set up and host your corporate blogging software and set specific goals as well as help you measure your results.  When you approach it as a real marketing effort instead of a thing you heard you should do, the entire experience changes.

Now you start out doing keyword research and targeting customers.  Then you buy a corportate blogging solution that will build a virtual keyword blog targeting each keyword.  Then you make a clear call to action that drives targeted visitors to your corporate blog to become a sales lead for you.

Blogging is exactly like normal websites.  You can set up a free website, you can set up a basic business website with no goals, or you can spend some money and time and set up a money engine that will pump your sales funnel full of targeted sales leads.

The most importat thing is to know what you want to achieve before you begin looking at corporate blogging software and other options.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Buzzoodle 

Business Blog Software

April 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Business Blogging Software can be one of the best investments your business will ever make.

Sure, there are great free blogging tools out there, but real business blog software has some important differences.

  1. Business Blogging Software is optimized for search engine results.
  2. Business Blog Software measures traffic, SERP and ultimately will demonstrate a strong blog ROI.
  3. Business Blogging Software is going to really focus on conversion.  Conversion could be direct sales from the blog or it could be lead generation.  Blogs are great tools when used by businesses to generate targeted leads on the web.
  4. A Corporate Blog is going to have multiple authors.  Many of the free blog tools on the market are nice but do not allow multiple users.

In addition to these four business blogging software points, if you hire a company that hosts your business blog for you they should provide support, guidance and a dependable hosting environment for your business blog.  Just try to back up your business blog on one of the free sites and you will quickly see how much time you are wasting.

Demo Business Blogging Software

Schedule a demo of great business blogging software today.

What you will find in the blog software demo is very little in the way of features.  That is because the entire search engine optimization process is automated and businesses only have to worry about writing occasionally and following up with the leads that the business blog is generating.

Keys to Success with your Business Blog

  • Target Niche Keywords that do not have extensive competition
  • Use business blog software that builds a virtual blog for every keyword you are targeting.
  • Focus on lead generation with your business blog.
  • Do not distract visitors with options that are outside of your business goals.
  • Work with a company that has been generating leads for years with business blogs.

Anyone can set up a business blog, but unless they fully understand how to optimize the business blog software to target niche keywords by building virtual blogs for each keyword, you are not going to get as good of an ROI on your business blog.

Also, your plan must include inbound link building.  A blog, business or otherwise, that never gets any links will not rank well and will not produce leads.  The business blog software and regular writing with no supporting strategy is not going to be in your businesses best interest.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Leads with Blogs

April 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Buzzoodle Update

We have quietly made a significant change to our business.  While I enjoy many different social media tools, but in this economy especially, it has become necessary to really focus on doing more with less and getting the outcome you need to be a viable business.

I am happy to report that we have already helped a couple of our initial beta users boost profits.

Let me encourage you to do the demo and see how we can help you generate more sales leads.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Local Directory vs Inbound Marketing

April 3, 2009 | 1 Comment

If you are comparing options for your online marketing spend, here is a comparison between local directory listings and inbound marketing.

A local directory listing is usually a webpage that shows off your company.

Local directories usually do a nice job of helping local people find your company - maybe in your main topic.  They are usually fairly low cost and are a good inbound link to have to your site.

Inbound Marketing can accomplish the same thing, but is has a little more diversity.  With Buzzoodle’s Inbound Marketing program you will attract people that are looking for a solution to their problem.  The very same problem your company solves.  Because it optimizes more content for your topic and is always trying to close the sale, Inbound Marketing will perform much better than a local directory listing.

That does not not mean you should not do local directories.  The more top 10 spots you can lock down in a search engine, the better.  If you are thinking about using a local directory and you have the funds to spare, it will not hurt and will help some.  But if you are serious about lead generation from targeted prospects, you should look at a focused Inbound Marketing Strategy.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs 

Inbound Marketing

March 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Quick note - I am rolling out some new things and you might want to visit my Inbound Marketing Blog.

Inbound Marketing is just one of the things I am hearing it called.  Also Magnetic Marketing, Pull Marketing…

The basic concept is to make it VERY easy for people that need your product or service to find you and to buy from you.

We have had great success with clients on this approach and we are currently transitioning Buzzoodle to be exclusively an Inbound Marketing Solution.

The sites are still a bit rough as they are being added to and updated, but things are going well so far and since I consider websites eternal works in progress, I might as well tell you about it now.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Buzz with Blogs 

Wordpress Themes

March 4, 2009 | 1 Comment

If you are setting up a Wordpress blog and are looking for free wordpress themes, there are many.  But there are also some advantages to purchasing a premium wordpress theme.  And the cost is usually very reasonable.

Wordpress Hack has a good article about Wordpress Themes and choosing the right wordpress theme for your project.

They cover issues around support and customization of the theme.

One interesting thing I learned about Wordpress Themes from the article is that there is a problem with people selling bad themes as premium themes.  Since I am very careful with my shopping, I have never experienced that.  But I can see how someone new to Wordpress could easily be fooled.]

The good thing is that you can find and install Wordpress themes in a few minutes, and if you do not like them you can change the theme in seconds.  It is very nice.  Go try a few free wordpress themes first, and if the basics are not enough for you, then go shopping for a premium Wordpress Theme.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog, Buzz with Blogs, Internet Marketing 

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