Moved my blog to another site

Thanks for everyone visiting this blog.  I’ve moved to another site – http://www.indianainternetmarketing.net.

Building an Internet Strategy for Business in the Digital Age

Thanks so much for attending our presentation last week. We really enjoyed meeting everyone and sharing with you our passion at MediaSauce for internet marketing and social media. I hope you learned a lot – I know I did by talking to you about your businesses and online needs.

The PowerPoint has links to various websites built into it but if I mentioned something in particular that you want to know about I’ll try and get back to you on this post.

Building an Internet Strategy for Business in the Digital Age

View more presentations from MediaSauce.

The worksheet we handed out at the presentation is available for download complete with answers below.

Worksheet Answers to Building an Internet Strategy in the Digital Age

Again, if you have questions you can email me or just comment on the blog.

Thanks and good luck with your businesses!

Internet Marketing 101: How to read Google Analytics?

When I first started this series on Internet Marketing 101, I told you how to set up Google Analytics on your site.  Now let’s see what Google Analytics can really tell you about your site?

Google Analytics Dashboard

I don’t have a whole month’s worth of data on my friend’s site, www.veinskincareinstitute.com, but I do have enough to teach you guys how to read the data and what I would consider important.

Let’s log into our account and see what the site is up to.

First, we see the Dashboard.

Here we can find several things quickly. We see our mountain range of user activity. Looks like on average we get about 30 users a day visiting the site with 579 Visits.

Help Feed Hunger Kids with One Click at www.pledgetoendhunger.com

Pledge to End Hunger

My friends at MediaSauce and I are trying to feed hungry kids in Austin, TX with www.pledgetoendhunger.com.

Tyson Foods will supply an entire trailer truck of food (35 lbs of food per click). Kimball Office’s Hum Office and Share Our Strength both helped with some much needed resources. MediaSauce and Kombolt provided the big idea, strategy and technical firepower.

All we need is a 1000 people to pledge to help. You can give, share or volunteer. One click, 35 lbs of food, feed 140 children.

Just click www.pledgetoendhunger.com.

Once we hit 1000 people, the challenge changes and Indiana can benefit from the food. Tyson will fill two more trucks and send them to the states that have the most pledges on the site.

It’s so easy to do, just click the link and sign up.

2 minutes of your time – a full belly for a kid that seriously needs it.

You don’t know how much I appreciate it.

Thanks. Thanks again.

Don

Internet Marketing 101: Understanding Your Current and Past Marketing Efforts

So we’re to the second question I posed for my friend’s company with my Internet Marketing 101: How Do I Start Marketing on the Web?

How's Your Current Marketing Going?

2. What is your current marketing strategy and how is it doing? What are your tactics to complete that strategy. You should have a record of what you are spending and how you are spending it and what it is bringing in. ROI is very important for each individual piece but don’t kill something just because it’s not performing as an individual (you should know how it is integrated with all of your marketing efforts).

My friend’s company, Vein Skincare Institute, is like most other small businesses.  As a friend on Twitter said they do “Random Acts of Marketing”.

Here’s my friend’s answer to what they do.

Secondary to finances, staffing, and business issues; we are currently not doing a lot of marketing.

In the past we have done much more, at various times including: print (major newspaper, magazine), direct mail, network TV, cable informercials, radio, seminars, direct physician office visit/in-service referral solicitation and data/guerilla-based.

At the moment, we have our web-site, pay-per-click internet campaign, (ever heard of Google’s Stupid Tax with Adwords) occasional e-mail offers, spotty thank you notes to patient referral sources, and in office signage.

We feel that we really need to pick up the marketing pace in a big way.

We need to have accurate tracking by staff.

We need to have aggressive data based marketing with software to facilitate this on a regular, efficient and consistent basis.

We need to overhaul or website from information, content, creative, color, speed, user friendliness, optimization techniques, increasing data base of e-addresses, regular e-newsletters, regular mailing and offers, and tracking of success/failure of programs.

Again another long winded answer:  bottom line is we are not doing very well with marketing currently.

Our budget is minimal for advertising right now, so I think mass media is out, and frankly I am not sold that it is pertinent anymore.

I think we need to maximize the internet, maximize data based, and direct office visits to referral solicitation, with tracking and consistency pushed in all areas.

I responded to her by saying, “I would agree with you on some of this.  Mass media sucks for pricing but can be crazy good if targeted at your audience and with a call to action that can be tracked.  It takes a lot of work to do this.”

Do you know your current marketing efforts?  If they are succeeding or failing?

Are they prepared for the work?  Technology makes tracking easy but it does require a lot of planning and effort.  Most small business really don’t need any extra work so it’s my job to figure out something that can track but not add a lot of extra work to the staff.

Next up, Question 3. Who is your competition both online and offline?  Knowing your competition well will help you position yourself differently and craft your message.  You should know their market share as well.  If you can’t find out on your own, buy the research.  It is marketing dollars well spent and can save you from making a bad decision.

Internet Marketing 101: Figuring Out Your Business Goals

Back on Feburary 20th, I began a series on Internet Marketing 101:  How Do I Start Marketing on the Web?

I’m using a friend’s business as an example.  It’s a vein treatment center located in St. Louis called Vein Skincare Institute.  She is answering the first of my four questions.  This is not how many questions we ask during an investigation of a company.  It’s just used for her as an example.

With her four answers, we’ll start working a strategy online that can help transform her business.  Instead of surviving, she’ll thrive and grow and, eventually, change the world.  Or at least, the world of vein treatment.

1. What are your business goals? This can be a lot of different answers but to me I really try and get them to tell me the obvious. It’s funny how many people talk about branding and awareness and all of that – which is important but more important is “I want to sell my product or service this many times.” You should know that number. It will drive everything that you do. Write it down in big letters.

Here’s her answer.

We are a full service vein treatment facility (phlebology) for problematic veins on the legs primarily; but we treat had, face and truncal veins as well.

We have a rather large tool box of treatment options, including injections, laser, intense pulsed light, and surgery.

While we have many other skin deep beautification services (laser hair removal, fotofacial rejuvenation, skin peels, permanent cosmetics, laser removal of tattoos, brown spots, birthmarks, etc), our main focus and that which drives our business is the treatment of problematic and unwanted veins.

In other words, if we grow our vein business, then the other services will grow thru cross-sales after confidence is gained after vein treatment, or patients see and hear about other services while in our building or webspace.

Our business works by attracting patients to our expertise, where they will receive a no charge consultation from a medical expert, followed by a summary meeting with a sales/marketing specialist, hopefully an appointment made, treatment to follow usually in multiple visits over several months, then after successfully addressing the initial concern, maintenance future regular visits…with multiple opportunities at various points to market to this population for cross-sales and referrals.

We mostly run with one full time physician and a very part-time physician, a nurse and an ultrasonographer.  The business was designed to be a 2.5 fte physician, and 2.5 nurse/laser tech facility, ie lots of room for growth.

Optimally I would like to see 3-5 new consults for veins a day, and “close” about 70% of them for treatment.  I would like to generate about 25 surgeries per month (some patients need injections only, and some need surgery and then injections).

So this is a long winded answer to your question:  basically we would like to average about 4 new consults a day.

This number would generate a cascade that with consult/sales/treatment and follow-up  including marketing, would give us very successful numbers!
I’m glad that she followed my advice about a specific number in mind.  So I immediately wanted to know what they averaged in the past.  Sometimes you’ll find a client that wants to jump from zero to max right away.  So I wanted to know what the reality is compared to the expectations.

She got back to me with this answer.  246 consults last year.

So let’s guess that there are 260 work days in a year and minus out vacation and holidays so that would probably take out 30-40 days.

On the low side 220 work days at 246 consults.  That’s a little more than 1 a day.

She wants me to quadruple that?  Wow, that’s ambitious.  I asked her how that breaks down and she replied with this.

We have our peak periods we call it “vein christmas” (that’s kinda creepy) that runs from Feb thru May so we tend to get the greatest # of consults around that time.

Here is the brk down since 1/2/08 to 2/26/09

jan 16 consults, Feb – 10, March – 36, April – 36, May – 27, June – 27, July – 12, August – 12, Sept – 15, Oct – 2, Nov – 13, Dec – 11, Jan – 12, Feb – 17.  Yes pls quadruple the number!

If we go on the basis of last year, we need to move quickly right now because “vein christmas” is just starting.

Next we’ll go over Question 2. What is your current marketing strategy and how is it doing? What are your tactics to complete that strategy. You should have a record of what you are spending and how you are spending it and what it is bringing in. ROI is very important for each individual piece but don’t kill something just because it’s not performing as an individual (you should know how it is integrated with all of your marketing efforts).
I love strategy and tactics – so this will be a fun one.

Internet Marketing 101: How do I set up Google Analytics?

While I’m waiting for the answers from my friend, I hooked up Google Analytics to their site.

Setting up Google Analytics

1. You have to have a gmail account.  BTW, I love gmail.  I switch off Microsoft Outlook in Jan and I won’t be going back.  It’s like when I switched from skiing to snowboard.  With the flexibility and ease of Gmail, there’s just no going back.  And you should also have a Google profile.  They are easy to set up and you can link to your websites and other profiles on the web.  Check out mine at Don Schindler Google Profile.

I would also recommend that you set up a gmail for your business.  I use this gmail account for lots of different pieces like Adwords, Adsense, Analytics, Checkout, etc…because then you don’t have to worry about mixing personal and business accounts.

2. Go to Google Analytics.

Go to Google Analytics

3. Do the whole “Sign Up now” thing.

Google Analytics Sign Up Page

4. Then put in your root website like http://www.yoursite.com/ and your time zone.

Put in the URL of your website

5. Fill out your personal info and select your country.

Put in your Personal Info

6. Agree to their Terms of Service.

7. Then fill out the rest and Google will give you a code.  It will look something like this.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var gaJsHost = ((”https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(”%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(”UA-7611885-1″);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}</script>

Google will give you the code.

8. Then you take this code and put it on every page of your site.  This can be done through a footer file or part of your template (as long as it is not inside a frame).  Or you will have to put it in manually on every page.

9. Once you’ve put the code in and uploaded the file or all the changed pages onto the site, then click “Continue”

10. Status should change if you’ve set up the code properly.  This one doesn’t because I don’t own www.yoursite.com.  If yours doesn’t change, then click Edit and then click Check Status on the top right of the page.  This will allow you to ping Google and check the status of the page.

Google Analytics Report Page

If you still have problems here, go out to your website and click on “View” in your browser, then select Page Source.  Do a search for “google-analytics”.  If it doesn’t show up, then you don’t have Analytics on the page and you need to check your code.

That’s basically it.  Once it says, your status is OK then you should start seeing visitors.  Here’s a look at the dashboard of my friend’s site.

Google Analytics Dashboard Top

Next time, we’ll discuss how to read Google Analytics next time.

Internet Marketing 101: How Do I Start Marketing on the Web?

What questions do you have about digital marketing?

OK, I’ve been gone a while.  I apologize.  I had a very large client with a very large budget and I needed to focus on them completely.  But now that the major presentation is done, I can go back to all the other things I was doing along with my job as a digital strategist at MediaSauce.

I get a lot of questions about what I would do with this or that on the web.  Does Twitter work? How should I be using Facebook or Linkedin?  What is the best way to get my site seen by Google? (This one is near and dear because if Google can’t see you, then you don’t exist.)  All good questions but there’s a lot that I don’t know about your company before I start recommending how you should be using technology.

So when I ran into an old college friend who needed some help, I thought this would be a great way to showcase what it is that I do and how I would do it.  The kind of marketing that I would do for her company most likely isn’t exactly what I would recommend for yours.  But the basic principles behind it would be there and you may learn something new.  I always do.

Some people call me an expert and I will tell you that I don’t think of it that way.  What I am is someone who learns all the time and I’ve probably got more experience at doing digital than most people (I’ve been in the field since 1997 – professionally since 1999).  Maybe that is what makes an expert in your mind.  But I don’t like the term “expert” out here on the web.  It changes too fast and too much for anyone to really get it down to an established formula.

That being said, let’s get back to Digital Marketing 101.

There’s a few questions that I need to know from you about your company.  I have a 44 question document that I usually run down when meeting a company for the first time.  But I also have a shorten version that we’ll use here.  These questions are a summary of the 44.

1. What are your business goals?  This can be a lot of different answers but to me I really try and get them to tell me the obvious. It’s funny how many people talk about branding and awareness and all of that – which is important but more important is “I want to sell my product or service this many times.”  You should know that number.  It will drive everything that you do.  Write it down in big letters.

2. What is your current marketing strategy and how is it doing?  What are your tactics to complete that strategy. You should have a record of what you are spending and how you are spending it and what it is bringing in.  ROI is very important for each individual piece but don’t kill something just because it’s not performing as an individual (you should know how it is integrated with all of your marketing efforts).

3. Who is your competition both online and offline?  Knowing your competition well will help you position yourself differently and craft your message.  You should know their market share as well.  If you can’t find out on your own, buy the research.  It is marketing dollars well spent and can save you from making a bad decision.

4. Who is your target audience?  Get as much information on these people as possible because it will influence all of your marketing decisions from messaging to channels.  Demographics, Male/Female, Age, Education, Income, Ehtnicity, Regions, Psychographics, etc…

Now, come on Don, that’s it.  Nope, that isn’t it.  There’s a lot more but to do a full blown evaluation (which this is not).  This is more for the Do-It-Yourselfers and the one-person marketing teams that many, many businesses have right now.

I don’t have the answers to my friend’s business right now, but since she has already given me FTP access to the site, I’m going to do what I always do first.

Set up Google Analytics to figure out what’s going on on their site.

How do you set up Google Analytics and then be able to read it?  I’ll tell you next week.

Do business blogs really work? Just ask Princeton Premier.

A business blog can do lots of things so it really depends on the company. I can tell you that we are not a digital company that immediately says you need a blog.

We are a company that will find out what you want to do, find out what your audience really wants from you and then if a blog fits our strategy – well then, we’ll suggest you start a blog.

But that being said, I am a big believer in blogs.  Right now, blogs are very good at doing lots of great things on the web.

What is Princeton Premier

Driving traffic (#2 from the guys at SEOmoz.org)
Spurring conversations – Check out Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
Giving business a real voice and personality (Chris Brogan and Bob Rhubart’s Comments
Search engines love them
But they can also suck.  Here’s a good list for knowing if your business blog sucks.

We measure our business blog by the traffic it generates and the conversations it spurs.  Our chief evangelist, Scottyhendo, is very, very good at getting conversations going.  Some of his more intriguing ones are:

I Gave $10 to David Armano to Help Daniela and Now I Regret It
Why Chris Brogan’s Kmart Moment Matters: Personal Reputation vs. Corporate Brand

But he is amazed at how much traffic my little post about Princeton Premier has driven for our blog.

I wrote it merely as an example of how I used searching and social media to find out about a company and then make a common sense evaluation of whether I wanted to do business with them.

But the blog post itself remains one of our top posts and continues to drive traffic to the site.  It’s on the first page of the Princeton Premier SERP (Search Engine Results Page) for Google and it continues to get comments.

I never really intended for it to do anything but be part of our voice to help businesses understand that if you aren’t out there in social media spaces and being a part of the conversation, others will do it for you.  And it may not be the message you want.

For Princeton Premier, I think it is bad.  Their site is number one but almost all the other links are blogs calling them out for being a scam.

The lesson here is make sure you are constantly making sure that you know what is being said about you on the web.  I use SM2 and Google Alerts for both my company and myself.

And then if you find something bad, knowing what to do about it. MediaSauce has several solutions for this that range from contacting the person directly to establishing a siteless web presence with social media.

If you would like to learn more, just give us a call at 317.218.0500 or email.

But back to my original purpose of this post, business blogs do work if you give them time and you write about things that your audience wants and you tie it into your business.  Don’t give them just fluff.  Don’t give them that old school marketing spin.

If you don’t believe in business blogs, I would like to understand why.  Give me your feedback and experience.

“Proven” Methods Don’t Change The World

So every morning I basically do the same thing.  I get up, get the kids fed and on the bus and then head to work.

Photo by Kevin Dooley

It’s pretty chaotic in the morning.  The kids make sure of that.

So when I get to work, I get to slow down right.  Well, not really.

In the world of digital, there is so much going on.  In fact it’s really chaotic.  There’s new technology – like everyday something fantastic comes out – and there’s new techniques.

What I did yesterday, may not work today. There are no real standards – and I would question what your outreach company says if they say they have a “proven” method.  How are you going to change the world with a “proven” method?  If that is the case, then everyone would be using it.

I’m not staying that you don’t need stats or some kind of proof that the strategy and tactics will work.  You should ask for examples of other successes but if they are suggesting that you do the same thing that someone else has already done.  Well, then how is that unique thinking?  How will that change the world for you.

I read this morning and had to print it out and tape it to the wall.  Things I like make it to my wall.

It’s from Scott McCloud.  And he says:

Learn from Everyone
Follow No One
Watch for Patterns
Work like hell

Love it. So how will you change the world today?