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10 Ways to Use Foursquare for Business

October 13, 2012 by Guest Blogger 2 Comments

Foursquare is a location-based smartphone application which offers check-in service to customers, marketers and businesses alike. You can use this mobile application to check-in to venues and share with your friends where you are, and obtain info about those places. Based on your updates, the application might assign you merit badges. It’s an interesting social concept for consumers and at the same time, a strong business tool that can be potentially used for creating brand awareness and profits. Hence if you want to leverage your business, this platform platform is worth looking at for several reasons. To do this, you’ll have to understand how it works. There are 10 ways to use Foursquare for business. To help you get an idea about promoting your own business through this platform, there are a few tips discussed below.

How to use foursquare for business

To begin with, check your business on Foursquare. If your business is not there, add it and then, claim it on the listing. Connect your Twitter account with the listing. This process is quite simple. Once this is done, you can proceed further to use Foursquare for business promotion. In this endeavor, following things can be done:

Create interesting deals to draw in customers. Deals can easily be created if you have claimed your business on this platform. You can give special discounts to those users who checks in to your business, for instance – announce to give 10% off on one’s next merchandise shopping. However, just ensure that your deals are special and creative so that new customers get attracted and keep coming back to you.
Design reward-based programs on Foursquare for loyal customers to retain them. If deals help you draw new customers, rewarding those who are regular visitors to your business is useful in winning their loyalty. It can create a bond between your customers and the business and entice them to come back to you. Your reward-based programs should be smart and intelligently devised, for instance – a program asking one to check in 5 times in 15 days and win a surprise gift.
Use Foursquare to collect demographic details of your customers. Through this platform, you can know the average check-in rate of a customer, his/ her age and gender, check-in timings and where he or she is sharing the check-in details – on Facebook or Twitter.
Another interesting way to use Foursquare for business promotion is to get feedback from your customers about your business. Customers can leave their comments or tips about a particular venue they visit. You can use their feedback to bring improvisation in your business.
Foursquare is a powerful medium to advertize your business for free. When you claim your business and optimize the listing by adding authentic contact details and website, you increase the chances of promoting your business across various social networking sites which are used by millions.
If your business doesn’t have a physical presence, you can use Foursquare to set up a page instead of claiming a venue. Foursquare page is not much different from a Twitter page. Those who follow your business on Foursquare can obtain information about you from there.
You can enter a partnership with other brands which are physically present to derive optimum benefit. For instance if you are a book publisher, join hands with a local bookstore to increase the reach of your business.
Design Foursquare event at your venue to boost massive check-ins and brand consciousness.
You can encourage your staff to join Foursquare and check-in at your venue there whenever they report to work. This will also help spread awareness about your business among their friends and followers.
You can also share useful tips on Foursquare to engage with your customers and thereby, attract their attention to your business.

These are few ways to use Foursquare for business. You can use these and other innovative techniques as well to make success out of your business.

Edoardo Piccolotto, is an Internet Marketing and Strategic Consultant that provides specific strategy advices to business that want to use internet to generate new business opportunities. Follow him on twitter @epiccolotto.

About Guest Blogger

This article is a guest post provided by a third party, its content was added to Digital Ethos to help provide additional information for our readers and followers. While the Guest Blogger posts do not undergo the same scrutiny as Authors and lack sources, the content was reviewed and approved as valuable to our mission.

Filed Under: Business, General, Guest Bloggers, Sales & eCommerce, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media, Social Media Topics Tagged With: advertising, business, Marketing, mobile, Mobile & Technology, Visibility

Why use Google AdWords? – Part 1- [Internship]

October 8, 2012 by Digital Media Education Internship 2 Comments

Ever search something on Google and wonder what makes the first search result better than the next? With a little help from AdWords it can help you achieve a higher rank in the search results. AdWords bid on keywords that will help trigger their sponsored ads. How much they bid is one of the things that determines their position on the page of search results. The more their ads are clicked, the less they have to pay for each click.

Google AdWords is Google’s pay per click (PPC) advertising platform. This tool is used to direct traffic to your website. Every time your ad is clicked in the PPC option, the advertiser pays the website owner on the terms that the agreed on. The budget can determine how often ads can appear on Google. PPC’s content usually takes form in advertisements such as sponsored links or ads. They appear either above your search results or along the side.

There are many beneficial factors when taking using the AdWords tool. When someone clicks on your ad, this will take them to your website where they can learn more about your business and make a purchase. Advertising on Google can direct more traffic to your website as you are using the most widely used search engine in the world.

When you first come across Google AdWords, you’ll want to narrow down your audience and attempt to target just your customers. Google AdWords allows you to narrow down your audience by choosing from hundreds of languages, and specific cities and regions. For example, if you own a furniture store in New York City, you don’t want your ads to be seen in Colorado. Set your campaign ads to be read in English throughout the New York City area. Making your ads visible within a ten miles radius of the city or using the zip code targeting can’t hurt either.

After you targeted your audience, you then want to create your ad that will appeal to them. You want your ad to stick out like a sore thumb. In a world full of furniture stores, you want someone to click on your website instead of your competitors. In order for the searcher to click your ad, you want to be able to provide them with the one they think provides the most beneficial information or drives the highest value. In order to make an ad the most effective for your website, you want to choose keywords that are relevant. Choose keywords that relate the most to your site, service or offer. For example, if you are a business that sells furniture, your keywords might include couch, futon, or recliner. You’ll also find it useful to create long tail keywords, like NYC furniture store, or park slope furniture store. The long tail keywords use more terms to narrow your target and often have less competition.

There are a couple of types of keywords, one being negative keywords. A negative keyword is a phrase or word that prevents ads from appearing when a searcher types it in. For example, if your business sells furniture, but doesn’t sell bed frames, you would add the negative keyword but put a hyphen before it like so –bed frames. This eliminates your ads from appearing on irrelevant searches. Another type of keywords include exact match. You want to use exact match when you are using keywords that are exactly what a customer would be looking for when searching on Google. Exact match means that the ad shows for searches only when the search query is exactly the same as your keyword. When using exact match, chose your keyword and put it in square brackets. When someone is looking to buy a love seat, and you own a furniture company, you may want to use [love seat] as an exact match.

After you created your ad, you want to set a pricing. Set your daily budget and cost per click up. You can spend to as much or as little as you want. The average cost per click with Google AdWords is around $3.50 per click but in some cases skyrockets to $20. A useful feature on AdWords lets you change your budget at any time. When you are finally all done with setting up your ad, you want to launch the campaign.

Signing up for Google AdWords can be a good move for your business. It can direct traffic straight to your website which can mean more purchases. Google AdWords generates more visitors, followers, and customers. When you have an effective ad on Google’s search results page, your website will see a whole new world. The tool is one of the best advertising options when you want to track ROI and be able to reduce or grow on the fly. While there is still a lot of other options, using the PPC campaigns in Google AdWords can be a great source for new business.

Coming In Part 2 – Google AdWords, Advanced Options, CPM, Newsletter, Calls, DisplayNetwork

Sources:

The content in this article is part of Digital Ethos’s Digital Media Education in the Higher Education Internship Program, the content was created by @KaylaMarzo, a Student at Suffolk County Community college, intern at Digital Ethos.

About Digital Media Education Internship

Digital Media Education Internship Program is an outreach initiative for Digital Ethos.

Filed Under: Authors, Business, Business Networking, General, Sales & eCommerce, Search Engines, SEO Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: advertising, adwords, google, Marketing and Advertising

How to Keep Your Email Campaigns Running Smoothly

October 3, 2012 by Monique Merhige Leave a Comment

Too many times, business owners don’t have an email marketing strategy in place and keep sending out emails over and over again to any list that they can get their hands on. Most use Constant Contact to deliver their email communications and manage their contact lists. Guess what? Constant Contact is cracking down on companies that are sending out continuous emails with no plan in place. If you are one of those people, be prepared for Constant Contact to shut down your account. Yes…they are shutting down accounts for a few valid reasons. It’s important to understand the rules of email marketing and follow it! Don’t let it happen to your company.

Here are some reasons that your email account can get shut down:

Too many bounces – It’s important to collect your bounced email addresses after every campaign and clean up your internal list. If your bounce rate is continually high, you will be shut down.
Spam Reports – Spam is unsolicited email also known as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). By sending email to only to those who have requested to receive it, you are following accepted permission-based email guidelines. If you receive a high rate of people complaining about being spammed by your company, then you are in jeopardy of being shut down for good. Constant Contact has a no tolerance spam policy.
Not removing Opt-Outs – Every email generated from Constant Contact contains an unsubscribe link which allows your contacts to opt-out of future emails and automatically updates your contact lists to avoid the chance of sending unwanted emails to visitors who have unsubscribed. It’s important to use one service for all your email campaigns to ensure that your opt-outs don’t receive any further communication via email from you. If you switch to another service, make sure you bring your opt-out (unsubscribe list) with you.
Invalid Company Contact Information - All of your emails are pre-filled with your contact information including your physical address. If you try to tamper with this or put in a phony address, be prepared to be shut down. Your contact information has to be clearly stated in any email communication.

What happens if your email account has been shut down?

The first step to rectify the situation is to contact a representative at Constant Contact and find out the reason why? Once they give you a reason, you can discuss ways to rectify the situation with your sales agent. Since you are paying anywhere from $28-$75 per month depending on your account preferences, Constant Contact wants to help you get up and running again. Just be very careful to follow their rules so you avoid being shut down for good.

I have spoken to clients that think they will just get another email vendor, but most vendors are following the Spam laws and regulations and will shut you down at some point. Also, another big misconception is that you can just use Microsoft Outlook to send out mass emails. Again, you need to make sure you have an unsubscribe link in your email and your contact information is clearly displayed. I would not recommend using Outlook for mass email communications since it’s not made for this purpose. You are better off using an email service that specializes in email marketing. At the end of the day, you do not want to annoy your customers/prospects with too many emails. You need to develop an email marketing strategy that works for you company and ensure that your email communication is going out to people that want to hear from you!

How to protect yourself from Spam: Take the Spam Test (compliments of Constant Contact)

Are you importing a purchased list of ANY kind?
Are you sending to non-specific addresses such as:
- sales@domain.com, business@domain.com, webmaster@domain.com, info@domain.com, or other general addresses.
Are you sending to distribution lists or mailing lists which send indirectly to a variety of email addresses?
Are you mailing to anyone who has not explicitly agreed to join your mailing list?
Have you falsified your originating address or transmission path information?
Have you used a third party email address or domain name without their permission?
Does your email’s subject line contain false or misleading information?
Does your email fail to provide a working link to unsubscribe?
Are you failing to process any unsubscribe requests that come to you via a reply to your email within 10 days or the request? If you have answered YES to ANY of the above questions you will likely be labeled a SPAMMER.

Sources:

http://www.constantcontact.com/uidocs/CCSpamPolicy.jsp

Email Marketing Rules

Email Marketing Laws

About Monique Merhige

Infusion Direct Marketing's founder Monique Merhige has over 15 years of marketing communications experience with technology companies ranging from small service firms and equipment manufacturers to a 1.5 Billion dollar division of Motorola. Monique is an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Dowling College in Oakdale and Brookhaven. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Marketing and an MBA in General Management.

Filed Under: Authors, Branding & Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital & Internet Marketing, General Tagged With: advertising, business, email marketing, internet marketing, Marketing, Visibility

A Day at Google New York & Seth Godin [OPINION]

October 1, 2012 by BasilPuglisi 5 Comments

Google started a pretty amazing program called “Google Engage for Agencies”, while it’s a great outreach program to help generate brand advocates that act as a sales team for low to no cost, it’s much more then that!

Google has generated a program that has done a few things, but I want to center on two, Content and Education!

1) Google Engage is a program that is producing content for Google. Agencies are now telling stories for Google about Google and tying it directly into local communities! The Engage program has agencies and consultants that now have stories that tie back to their community, ones that give all the recognition to Google and the AdWords platform.

2) Google is flooding the market with the correct information and empowering agencies and consultants through education to provide the correct and effective services. In a time period where consumers distrust agencies and digital marketers (and they should) Google has decided to empower those that want to learn, want to provide value making it much harder for those that are not genuine to survive.

The Engage program has provided others, like myself with direct education and training. The information that I now have as a professional has been advanced by the support of Google, both in a distance education program and done in conjunction with Dale Carnegie trainers at Google.

I made a comment earlier that consumers distrust digital marketers and agencies and that “they should”. I stand by that statement, in fact, I started blogging because of that very fact just a few years ago. Walk into a small business owner these days and don’t be surprised when you get a question like “what makes you different then the other 100 sales people before you” and it’s a great question, in fact if business owners and organizations had asked it sooner we wouldn’t have the distrust that the marketing industry has earned.

Google made a commitment to provide a service that they believed helps connect people on the web to solutions providers and services. That incredible tool has been defiled by digital marketing consultants and agencies. As Seth Godin has explained, marketing had it good until the illusion vanished. Out of fear and greed the economy was destroyed overnight by those that worked to game the system, be in PPC, SEO or just selling products, services and solutions that they didn’t care if it worked as long as they got paid.

Google had another great surprise for those of us in attendance, a LIVE Google Hangout with Seth Godin, “America’s Greatest Marketer“ as claimed by American Way Magazine. Seth’s presentation was excellent and while he did a great job sharing information with us, the Q&A was a treasure. Seth’s message is that success comes from being genuine and often takes a long time, in fact Seth admitted it took his blog three (3) years to gain traction.

A day at Google confirmed one thing, the world is full of fraud and the marketing industry has a disproportionate number of contributors. The bright note is that for those of us that take the time to genuinely try solve problems and not just generate sales or revenue, we can and will be successful. In this case, Google is genuine about wanting to connect people with what they are actually looking for, be it through organic search or paid search. Google is acting like a leader, providing the right and accurate resources to the community. The Google Engage program is just one of the resources that Google has invested in to empower the professionals that are trying to do the right thing by their clients, customers and business.

In the end, Google was impressive at every turn. Google New York had Food, Fun and Value! The information was only surpassed by their commitment and methods to deliver it! A methodology that I feel is worth any successful business or corporation pursuing.

About Basil Puglisi

@BasilPuglisi is a Content Contributor and the Chairman of the Board for Digital Ethos. Basil C. Puglisi is also the Digital Marketing Manager for PMG Interactive. As the Digital Marketing Manager he provides oversight and support to Digital Campaigns, from Website Development to Search and Social Reach.

Filed Under: Authors, Branding & Marketing, Business, Business Networking, Content Marketing, Digital & Internet Marketing, General, PR & Writing, Publishing, Sales & eCommerce, Search Engines, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Traditional Marketing Tagged With: advertising, adwords, brand, business, google, Marketing, ppc, Search engine optimization, SEO, Visibility, website

What Type of Marketing Job is Right for Me?

September 27, 2012 by Guest Blogger Leave a Comment

You want to get into marketing, but aren’t sure where to start. Maybe you’ve just graduated or are looking around for an internship, but are having trouble narrowing down your options. The fact of the matter is that marketing is a vast industry, and it has many different types of careers to offer in numerous fields. The key is finding the one best suited to your particular strengths and passions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41605671@N08/4090395947/

The marketing sector can be broadly divided into five primary fields or branches. They are all interrelated and interdependent, but each is unique and all involve very different job descriptions. You can choose from careers in advertising, media, brand management, market research, and PR. Here’s what each has to offer:

If you’ve ever seen an episode of HBO’s Mad Men, you probably have a general idea of what this work involves. Of course, it’s not nearly so glamorous or dramatic as that, but a career in advertising means becoming an expert in rhetoric, persuasion, and psychology. You’ll need to have a sharp aesthetic sense, be well versed in typography and design, and, most importantly, be able to create concise appealing images and expressions that will sell products.

Media

Technically, media falls under the blanket of advertising, but it deserves it’s own space because of the specialization it involves. While advertising, as characterized above, refers to the generation of concepts and strategies, media refers to the communication of those ideas. These jobs demand technical skill and involve getting the ad concepts circulating at maximum exposure on the Internet, television, in print, on billboards, and wherever else they will be most effective.

Brand Management

Brand Management accounts for a large part of marketing. It is also a largely conceptual field that requires an intimate understanding of a specific company and the products it sells. Brand managers must find ways to capture the essence of a company or product and translate it into a concise image, name, and marketing strategy––all while anticipating public reactions, carving out a niche market, and combating competitors.

Market Research

To sell a product, one must first understand the people it is being sold to. Market researchers conduct polls, organize focus groups, analyze statistics, recognize and anticipate consumer trends, and gain insights into the habits and psychology of the buyer.

Public Relations (PR)

Public relations jobs require strong social skills and fast-talking. PR departments are intermediaries between the media, consumers, employees, investors, and the public. They write press releases, appease angry parties, promote products, keep investors informed, and deal with journalists.

As long as products are being sold, there will be a demand for people who can market them. This is why there are so many employment opportunities in the marketing sector, and usually a strong degree of job security. Slumps in the economy rarely put marketing firms out of business. Rather, they make companies who are desperate to sell their products even more reliant on advertising and creative marketing. Hopefully this guide has helped you narrow down your options. Best of luck in finding the type of career you’ll pursue in your job hunt!

Thanks to Agency Central for contributing this guide. If you fancy your hand in any of these roles, you can find wide range of marketing recruitment agencies at AgencyCentral.co.uk.