Disconnected or No Longer in Service – The future of the phone book advertising

It dawned on me the other day that I hadn’t picked up a phone book in months. As I thought about that I started noticing the phone book usage of my family. I didn’t see them picking up a phone book either. All of us were going to straight to the Internet to find our information. For us, search engines have become our phone book.

Now I realize we may not be a typical family. I’m a web developer. I’m very geeky. It comes with the territory. But I hadn’t realized that it had rubbed off on the family. My wife isn’t overly technical and my teenagers are fairly typical computer users. But it was an eye opening revelation which got me wondering what the rest of the world was doing.
A search across the interwebs reveals some interesting data.

Search Engine Watch has some interesting data from a TMP/ComScore study showing search engine usage compared to the phone book. For the last 3 years, they’ve been in a statistical dead heat at 30-31% with SE’s gaining a very slight lead in 2009.

But the more interesting chart was the Frequency of Use graph. It shows that 70% of the study uses the phone book less than once a week, 28% use it once or twice a week and only 1% uses it daily. Compare that with social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) where the 26% use it every day and 50% use it 1-3 times a week. Search engines come in just behind that by a few percentage points.

Interesting numbers, no?

One thing these charts don’t really show is the age breakdown. I’m sure you could make all kinds of other distinction based on age and other demographics. But honestly, the writing is on the wall.

Are you where your customers are?

It’s more important, now more than ever, to have a web presence. The next couple of years will see huge growth in the mobile web market. Will your customers be able to find you if they’re not opening the phone book?

Let me give you an example of how we do it at our house. We decide we want to go out to eat, but not sure where we want to go. We decide on Italian. I prefer local joints over chains, so I decide to see what local Italian eateries I can find. I type “Italian restaurants Wichita” into my search engine of choice to see what comes up.

Immediately I’m served up 7 listings with a map and reviews of some of them and there’s a link to more results right under those. In a moment, I can see where they are compared to where I live and what others have said about them. I don’t get that from the printed phone book.

If you’re not utilizing these types of services, you’re missing out on a large number of customers. I know what you’re saying, “my demographic isn’t on the web.” That may be so today, but will it be so tomorrow? Next month? Next year?

Nielson reports that the number of seniors online has risen 55% over the last five years. As that group becomes savvier, they will follow the path of the younger generation and abandon the book as well. Bill Gates had this to say back in 2007;

“Yellow Page usage amongst people in their, say below 50, will drop to near zero over the next five years.” – Bill Gates (Seattle Times, 2007)

It’s simply a matter of time. You need to be where your customers are now and where they will be tomorrow. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

SPAMBUSTER Part 3 of 3: Web Site Betrayal

In Part One we talked about how spammers send junk using your “identity” and in Part Two we discussed how spammers can use your infrastructure to send their junk. Part Three will cover yet another way you can become a victim of SPAM.

Interesting Fact #1: No matter what you do, you will get SPAM.

Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas launches new web site

High Touch announces the launch of the new Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas web site – www.wishks.org.

Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas needed to revamp their web site and wanted more control over their content. The non-profit was familiar with High Touch through their IT Management Services and High Touch was ecstatic to be offered the opportunity to extend their relationship with Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas with their Web Development Services. High Touch formulated a solution that gives Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas control over the web site content with no need for programming or HTML skills. In addition to being able to easily add information to the web site, the new site enables visitors to sign up for newsletters from Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas and forward the site to a friend through an easy-to-use web form. The site utilizes an extend-able platform that will enable it to grow along with the needs of Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas, and can be enhanced with additional features such as embedded video, slide-shows and more due to the platform’s plug-and-play nature.

Congratulations to our friends at Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Kansas on their new web site!

High Touch offers e-mail marketing with Constant Contact partnership

High Touch, Inc. is excited to announce its new partnership with E-mail Marketing leader Constant Contact.  The partnership offers E-mail Marketing solutions that allow businesses to easily produce surveys, promote an event and send newsletters online. Service packages start at just $15 per month and different packages are available to cater to your business’s needs

E-newsletters

E-newsletters gives businesses the opportunity to boost customer communication, easily target audiences, save money on paper and postage, call for immediate response and action, and track results.  Features include:

• Step-by-step wizard
• Picture upload
• E-mail Auto-Responder (schedule automated response e-mails)
• Over 400 templates
• Ability to customize and brand templates

Online Surveys

Businesses will be able to find out what interests their prospects, what their customers really want and get valuable information to help them successfully run their business with surveys that are easily tailored to their business.  Features include:

• 60 templates in 12 categories
• Step-by-Step wizard
• Poll feature allows for quick, simple questions
• Ability to customize and brand surveys

Event Marketing

Businesses will be able to promote an event and make online registration available for attendees, streamlining processes with automated payment collection and e-mail communications.  Features include:

• Online registration
• Custom fields
• Electronic invitations
• Forward-to-a-friend
• Google Maps integration

To learn more about High Touch’s partnership with Constant Contact visit http://www.constantcontact.com?pn=hightouchinc.

Tips for Choosing a Domain Name

A strong web presence is key to communicating information about your organization. You want information on the web about your organization, but more importantly you want people to be able to find that information.

Domain names are becoming harder to find.  Unless you have an unusual business name, it’s quite possible that you may not be able to register your first choice or exact name of your organization.

Web sites are developed and optimized using key words and key phrases, and having some of these in your domain name could help with your search engine rankings. Below are a few tips to help you choose a domain name.

Keep It Simple
Your domain name should be catchy and easy to remember. Hyphens, numbers and unusual spellings are not recommended (unless it’s part of your organizations name). Something that is easy to spell and easy to remember will work best, otherwise when your audience searches for your organization, they may stumble upon another company.  

Make It Part of Your Identity
Do you have a catchy marketing phrase, slogan or tag line? You may want to consider using it as your domain name. But be sure to follow the above advice and keep it short and simple, something your audience will easily remember. A word of caution: headlines and calls-to-action from marketing campaigns aren’t always a good idea. Your campaign will eventually be replaced with a new campaign, leaving your web site domain outdated. However, for product or service launches, headlines and calls-to-action  are appropriate when that product or service has it’s own web site.

Use an Appropriate Extension
The most widely used extension is.com, and I don’t foresee that changing anytime in the near future. A newer extension that is more commonly being used for business is .biz, but most people may still type in .com.  When registering your .com domain, it’s not a bad idea to also register .biz and .info. They can be directed to the same place, but that way you are covering all bases and another business won’t be able to use your domain.

Below is a list of different domains types to help you choose the most appropriate for your organization.

• .Com – company/commercial, but can be used for any web site
• .Net – network and is habitually used for a network of sites
• .Org – organization and is meant to be for non-profit entities
• .Us, .Nu, .Co, .Uk, – Are country specific domain extensions that may require the registrant to be a national of the said country
• .Biz, .Info – These and others like have been added as the availability of domain names has become scarce

BuyAHoist.com Site Launch

High Touch Inc.’s web development team is pleased to announce the launch of http://www.buyahoist.com. We’re proud of the work we’ve done for Buy A Hoist and are excited to share the results! After several months of development and enhancements the end result is an easy-to-use eCommerce site with customer friendly navigation and an in-depth product search. Buy A Hoist is a one stop shop for industrial hoists of any kind so allowing customers to easily find just the hoist they were looking for was very important. High Touch met this need by incorporating multiple navigation and search elements each targeted to a different type of search in order to cover all the bases. We are excited to work with the Buy A Hoist team as they navigate the waters of eCommerce.

Welcome to the web BuyA Hoist.com!

Sifting through Social Networking for Small Businesses

I don’t know about other marketing departments, but a challenge for smaller marketing departments is how to stay on top of your businesses’ social networks.  The confusion can be as simple as where to post the latest information, all the way to – when to find time to post a status?  Of course that’s only scratching the surface to an even larger picture such as how to put together a marketing plan that strategically focuses on the brand and image of your company’s social media presence.  What I’ve experienced so far is to first build a step-by-step approach.  Second, get the right people to buy-in and develop a social media plan.  And third, move full speed ahead.

A Step-By-Step Approach

This first step is to determine which social tools you want to use.  While this can seem somewhat easy, not all tools are suitable for everyone.  Jumping in with both feet is an option and may work well yet researching a little bit about each of the mediums, how they work and what your audience is using will help eliminate additional steps and frustration.  Setting up personal accounts on the most popular networks will also provide you additional experience as you create business accounts for social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogging sites. 

Some would even argue that a CMS web site is a social tool.  For smaller marketing departments, the migration from a fully developed web site by a developer to a Content Management System site can be an invaluable tool.  If your company is trying to emphasize branding and you have a small budget, implementing a CMS web site is an inexpensive solution.  There are several solutions that are fairly intuitive and can be implemented quickly.  Outlining the purpose of a business’ web site, creating a site map and developing a simple wireframe can help reduce the overall expense of the web developer’s time and eliminate frustration on both parties.

Social Media Plan

Let’s face it, everyone is busy.  So before you can even begin to get buy-in, develop a plan.  Include in the plan what you hope to achieve from each medium, how you plan to measure the results, how you plan to execute the plan, and how often you hope to update your networks.  The plan will show the strategic nature to the influential people within your company and emphasize importance of social networking to gain the buy-in necessary to succeed with your plan.  Remember, part of the buy-in is to ensure you have a sufficient number of “helpers” to update the networks.

Moving Full Speed Ahead

Once you begin, there is no stopping.  It can be a little overwhelming at first, which is why the plan is important before beginning the process.  Social Media takes time and dedication, but by following some initial steps you’ll be well on your way to blogging, networking and seeing the results outlined in your plan.

Traffic Building For Small Businesses

Everyone wants visitors to their site, it’s the Holy Grail for web site owners. Unfortunately, there are as many opinions about traffic building as there are people on the web. Fortunately, there are a few tried and tested tips that will work for everyone and you don’t have to be a SEO guru to implement them.

Don’t Ignore Geography

• If you’re mostly concerned with local or regional business traffic, don’t overlook those keywords in your web copy. If your customers will be searching for “heating and air conditioning in my city,” make sure to have the city name prominently placed on your site and in your copy.
• Take advantage of Google’s Local Business Results Listings in their search. In the Google Search results, the Local Business Listings map shows above the organic search results with a very helpful link to your website as well as a detailed business listing including a map with directions to your store! The best part is – it’s free! Sign up here for Google’s local maps.

Don’t Ignore Offline Eyeballs

• Capitalize the first letters of each word in your domain name for maximum readability – example www.HighTouchInc.com.
• Including the domain is especially true if you have delivery and/or company vehicles. Make sure your domain name is visible and easy to read on your vehicles.
• Add your domain to your business cards, letter head, brochures, ads, invoices, bills, etc. Any piece of paper that leaves your business should have your domain on it.
• Don’t forget to include your domain name on electronic communications as well. Email signatures, voice mail, on hold messages, fax headings, etc.
• If you have a store front, put the domain on the front door so customers see it when entering and leaving.

Be A Good Netizen

• Use social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc, but be a good netizen. People don’t want to have your sales message slammed down their throats; they want to get to know you first. It’s like dating – take the time to build those relationships first.
• Find online social groups and sites that match your company’s interests and get involved. Communicate, answer questions, comment. Did I mention to build relationships first?
• Get your site linked from industry organizations that your a members of or join those that match your business focus. Make sure that your site is in directories like Yellowpages.com and similar sites. Many of these are free or very low cost.
• Write helpful articles on your site. Blog about issues your customers may have. Become a source of information rather than just a product provider. It will help to develop your credibility in the industry and get you noticed.

The web is full of people trying to get their message out, most of these messages get lost in the noise. Getting users to your site takes time and effort; so there really are no silver bullets here. Marketing your web site is no different than marketing any business., online or offline. Fortunately, there are a few many tools online for small businesses that are easy on the marketing budget. Use Google Analytics or other site statistics packages to track and review your efforts as you try new things and adjust based on the feedback.

In the Google Search results, the Local Business Listings map

Google Announces Social Search

Your social circle online is quite possibly the lifeline of your business. Your business may make social connections via blogs, status updates and tweets. You put the information out there, and ideally people should be able to find your business in a blink… Unfortunately it’s not always that easy.

Google recently announced the rollout of a new experiment on Google Labs called Google Social Search. The search is intended to help you find relevant public content from your social circle. This search function may make it easier for people to find you and for you to know what people in your social circle are talking about.

How do you get started?

1. Create a profile on social media sites relevant to your business – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
2. Include your location(s) of business in all of your social media profiles
3. Include your keywords in all of your social media profiles
4. Create a Google profile
5. Sign up for Google Experimental Labs

Once you have signed up for the experiment, give it a test run.  Simply sign in to Google and do a search. If there’s relevant web content written by people in your social circle, it will automatically show up at the bottom of your search results under a section called “Results from people in your social circle.”

To see even more social content, click the “Show options” link at the top of the results page and then click on the “Social” link.

Remember, at this point Social Search is merely an experiment. But we are interested to hear how Social Search is working for you! Share your experiences – good and bad – with us, and we will do the same!