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Friday, September 25, 2009

Marketing to customers with a phone number that lacks vanity

I believe it's pretty common for companies to use telephone numbers that when the numbers are converted to letters actually spell words that cleverly help customers remember that phone number when needed. These types of telephone numbers are called vanity numbers or phonewords.

This article considers the fact that you are considering the use of your telephone phone number that DOES NOT have a hidden when translated (lacks vanity), but you want to use your telephone number to market your business.

So now you ask.
Where can you find examples of a partial word, an acronym, abbreviation, or an alphanumeric combination being used to increase memorability and increase response rates to marketing?

First you should know why so much vanity.
Many companies use these phone numbers on radio, television, print, outdoor, etc. as they are proven to increase response rates by 30-60%

So you know now that I'm talking about phone numbers like 1-800-FLOWERS or 1-800-BUSINESS or 1-800-CONTACTS... Okay... I think you've got this part down.

Now let's see how you can take your marketing to the next level. Maybe your phone number doesn't have to be so inflated pride in oneself at all.

Let's think about this a minute.
Vanity numbers or Phonewords came about before the cellular phone and the Internet. And users or marketers had radio, print advertising and word-of-mouth marketing to spread the phonewords with vanity (pun intended). Anyway, the point here is the points of contact with consumers was limited.

Here comes the whammy.
We have the Internet now and Cellular phones that do most of the connecting for us. So why not use your telephone number for your website address? Look, you may have worked or are working for a company now where half of your email address is the companies name. So?

So!
If you starting a business and everyone knows your cell phone number; use your cell phone number as your website address. Only make since. If your a Real Estate Agent with the name John and your phone number is 202-701-9393 (which has no vanity or phoneword), people would visit your website at: www.2027019393.com

Things that make you say humm?
Let's take it a step further. With regard to Realtor John... your email address would be: john@2027019393

And as normal.
Your still John now... and people call you at 202 701 9393

Where you going, there's more!
When anyone gives out your phone number, they are also dishing out your website address and part basically your email address at the same time. There are still situations where we write down information... like phone numbers and website addresses. It's also normal that you will only be able to find a small piece of paper to write on. Using your phone number as a catch-all, 3 amigo, you'll not need as big a scrap to scribe.

We only use letters (domain names) for website addresses because it makes it easier for humans to remember. However if you work very closely with clients like Real Estate Realtors, Insurance Agents, Personal Trainers, etc.; you could benefit from this marketing edge.

You may be asking, how will people I don't know find me if they don't know my phone number? The answer is; you will also register a domain name with words as normal. You could even mask your phone number url so when people go to it, the domain name with the words is displayed in the browser.

Example: you website address is www.2027019393.com but when people get your your website they would see the domain name with words that you also registered, let's say it's www.jrpremierproperties.com.

This is called masking... and there are no negative aspects to harm your website or the FCC. Just make sure you or your webguy or webgirl setup your masking properly and if you are forwarding to a different domain name... make sure you domain is set as 301 permanent redirect.

You've just learned how to use your telephone number to secure 3 points of contact and they are:

How to use a telephone number as your Email Address
How to use a telephone Number as your Web Site Domain Name with or without masking
How Telephone Numbers can be your Email, Website, Phone Number that all lead back to you.

This is Gibron T. Williams, Head Honcho at Oevae Marketing Consultants and these are my opinions.
Find oevae marketing consultants on the first page of Google when you search for: the best marketing consultants or the best marketing consultants in the world

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Do you need business cards or website first?

This is a question I hear from time-to-time from small business owners and start-ups. You can actually have your cake and eat it too. Here's how. This article is for those of you who have some knowledge of conducting business using business cards without a website and the opposite - conducting business with a website and no business cards. Then there are those of you who need both. Either is fine and useful in the right marketing arena. I've used a few questions and answers to help you see if you need business cards now that you have a website or if you need a website if doing business with cards already works.

I have a website but I don't have business cards. What can I do? You can conduct business online without giving out a business card to get people to visit your website. Before you go out and have business cards designed and printed, look for websites that allow you to build online business listings, and offer you marketing tools to increase your business connections. Go to websites like MerchantCircle.com, Kudzu.com, Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local Listing, Yellowpages.com, etc. These are just a very few so jump on the search engines and start listing your business online now. People browse for local business reviews on every topic you can imagine. Choose the listing that best fits your business. Now go out and have at least 100 business card printed so you have another channel to drive traffic to your website. Best of all many of these business listings are free. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true. It probably is.

I have business cards. When should I get my website? With the saturation of text messaging and email, it's very easy to pass along the phone number of your favorite salon to your friends. It takes about 1 minute. You can even send them the salon website address and name of your hairstylist if you want. So why do a business card design and printing for nothing? The truth is there are times when you don't have your cell phone or computer under your fingertips - or should I say you should think twice. A wedding is not a great place to do business, and being on your cell phone is even worse. So if you choose the lesser of the two; go with the business card pass over texting your business info. Since you have a channel for telling people about your business with your business card, now is the time you can add a website address to your business card. You can gain information by having a simple form on your website, update potential clients on new offers or innovations in your industry. Your website can help you tell people about the benefit of conducting business with your company. Your website need not be more than 1 or 2 pages to add value to your brand. It's perfectly fine to conduct business when you have business cards but no website. Keep in mind that a website will offer your company additional exposure and potential for winning new customers. So it's really up to you when and if you want to turn up the volume. Take it one day at a time and make your best-educated decision after your research.

I have a website. Why do I need business cards anyway? Business cards are a great way to advertise and market your business or push more people to your website. They can help you give people a glimpse of what your business can do. You can start building your brand's mood with different colors and images that represent or back up what you have just vocalized. The business card can be passed from one recipient to a third party. Most importantly the business card allows you more opportunity to give something physical and they are a powerful way to increase referrals to your small business.

The best answer in my opinion is to go ahead and knock-out both at the same time. Have business cards printed and your website design at the same time – if at all possible. If you receive your business cards first, don't hold back on handing out your cards if your website is not finished. You may be thinking that potential customers will go to your website and see a big-fat goose egg, zero, nothing, nada, zilch, zip. To keep this from happening, tell your web guy to add a small statement to your website about your company that tells visitors how to communicate with you while your site is being "updated." Never say "under construction." Nobody wants to hear that their dinner is almost ready and that's what "under construction" sounds like. Additionally, your visitors will be hungry for information (the main purpose of the Internet anyway) and you need to at least give them a nibble. Chick-Fil A does a great job at sampling. Take note and use the same principle.

This is Gibron T. Williams, Head Honcho at Oevae Marketing Consultants and these are my opinions.

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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

What do Tags mean to your website?

Image via Wikipedia

The first thing Google tells you about meta Tags is that Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking. So this article is more at understanding Tags and crafting Tags for your website in a way that will help your website communicate better with the search engines so people can find your website faster and with less effort in doing so.

So that you don't read my entire soapbox yet guide to generating great tags; here's the list of topics I will cover:

Proper Title Tags, Proper Description Tags, Proper Keywords Tags, Proper Heading Tags, Page Content, Duplicate Content/Tags, Word Density, and end with Web Site Analysis.

If this all sounds like a foreign language to you. Don't bug out yet. You should at least familiarize yourself with these topics as a small business owner. These topics are very important aspects of website development that make you or make it very hard for you to have the positive results desire.

So grab a cold beverage and about 20 minutes to refresh your knowledge about Tags, learn something you didn't know about tags, or make sure you know what you're talking about when it comes to Tags and your website.

Here you go.

Well-constructed Title Tags
Well-constructed title tags contain the main keyword for the page, followed by a brief description of the page content. It will be less than 65 characters and avoid using stop words such as: a, if, the, then, and, an, to, etc. Your title tag should also be limited to the use of alphanumeric characters, hyphens, and commas.

Good Description Tags
Good description tags contain information about the page's content and persuade search engine users to visit your web site. They should be between 25 and 35 words in length.

Proper Keywords Tags
Proper keywords meta tag should contain between 5-10 keywords or keyword phrases that are also found in page content.

Proper Heading Tags
Each page of your site should use at least the H1 heading tag for the search engines that examine it when crawling your site.st the H1 heading tag for the search engines that examine it when crawling your site.

Duplicate Content/Tags
Because search engines treat web sites as a grouping of pages and not a single entity, each page on your site should be unique so that the tags and content differ between each page. Doing so increases the number of pages that will rank.

Word Density
Pages should contain 300 to 700 words of unique and descriptive content. A page's meta tag keywords should also be those that occur most frequently on the page.

Web Site Analysis
A robust analysis (including keyword usage, spiderability, and Robots.txt files and Robots Meta tags) of your website's strengths and possible weaknesses helps you remain search engine friendly. Monitoring your website analytics aka performance will help you get detailed, site-specific results faster.

That's it.
Now REMEMBER not to be discouraged if you don't see instant results. This is not minute rice we are cooking. No, knowing what Tags means you can make sure your website is and remains search engine friendly. Knowing your Tags also helps you build your online brand with maximum impact. So take your time and make subtle adjustments and monitor your website analytics.

This is Gibron T. Williams, Head Honcho at Oevae Marketing Consultants and these are my opinions.

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