Opportunity to Grow your Business

You can't let the negative economy predictions get you down. I am finding the more businesses embrace what is going on and make the tough decisions they maybe should have made sometime ago the better they are doing. Often the quick answer is we need money. Is that always the answer? Here are a few positives on why online marketing can be such a good deal for your business during a down turn in the economy. You can do this with existing budgets and increase your sales and market share.

1. Weaker players are being forced from the market so increasing your market share can be accomplished. It is not fun watching those same businesses that you sold to a little while ago go out of business, but if it is competition this can be a great opportunity for you.

2. Buying behaviors are changing so that online marketing across the United States is actually grabbing the attention of the consumer. Sometimes this is price motivated, but sometimes it is motivated by the very poor customer service they have been receiving and they can move using the economy as an excuse.

3. Statistics show over and over that during the great depression and other recessionary times in America the one thing that most successful businesses can point to is the fact that they kept in front of people and selling their goods and services.

Here are the recommended steps to take to increase your business during the recession!

1. Use the low cost and highly targeted marketing of the Internet to bring you more business. More time is being spent on the Internet by those who are looking for jobs, and in general the Internet is becoming a larger part of each persons day. Use a good online marketing company http://www.PremierSpot.biz to build a strong presense online through marketing is extremely important.

2. Having a strong online advertising campaign will allow you to track the value of what your advertiisng dollars are. This creates a much better environment for your marketing budget. More importantly the continuing of advertising conveys strength and allows you to show the potential clients how strong you are even in a down market.

3. The economy will eventually rebound so the time to strengthen and grow is now. Use online marketing and advertising to create that solid foundation and growth.

Touching base using Email

During tight times you cannot afford to let customer service slip. The number one way to loose business for both small and large companies is a lack of or a nonchalant approach to customer service. First it is important to understand great customer services starts with being proactive and asking your clients how you can help them. This is not customer service it is great customer service. No client is ever going to fire you because you communicated with them as long as you are not obnoxious about your contact with them. The real question is how do you stay in touch with your clients and show them that you care about their needs instead of waiting for them to contact you.

The Problem

We frequently hear from businesses that the amount of clients that account managers are expected to connect with is increasing with cutbacks at companies, needs for more revenue and a general fear that non connecting means the client is shopping your service for lower prices. Although I can tell you that clearly many companies are searching for lower prices during tight times it is still not the deciding factor in most business decision makers minds. The number one issue is a genuine concern about their business.

The Solution

Touching base in meaningful ways on a consistent basis. Some people call this a relationship, and I think this is a fair way to sum up what is happening. But it is further then just a relationship, it is a connection to that business that recognizes that you care about them and the struggles they have. I once heard a business partner say "I'll pay anything for a vendor that actually does what they say they are going to do"

At PremierSpot we bring the touching base in a meaningful way a step further and we feel it has and continues to pay dividinds for our clients. We believe by touching base we are providing great customer service. Using the power of email we can contact clients directly to let them know about the services we offer that can help them out. We take it a step further and value add the email communication with information that will or can help that particular business. Using the power of email communication we can also understand who is reading what we have sent and if they followed through by clicking on links that are included in the communication.

Are you struggling with a professional newsletter or eblast for your clients. Contact PremierSpot today for more information.

Christopher M. Swanson
CEO
PremierSpot iMarketing
http://www.PremierSpot.biz

Using Twitter to Grow your Business

Before I hopped on twitter I asked myself how could something like Twitter be useful to help bring in sales. I was extremely skeptical of the tweets and how they could be used to encourage a decision maker to purchase from PremierSpot iMarketing. I started looking at it from the standpoint of all the clients we have and how this could prove to be a useful tool. One thing that did intrigue me was the number of people who were starting to use Twitter. So I decided to take a crash course in Twitter and how to become a Tweeter.

When I first started out on Twitter I signed up for my account which appeared to be very simple. I noted that we could search on twitter for specific words that I could choose. I right away looked at this as almost a search engine of information on potential customers. One thing quickly became clear and that is the generic look that twitter provides would not cut it for the look of our business. I had our designers create a look and feel that was PremierSpot's brand. Once that was completed we started to further our followers by posting links on Twitter to our blog and website. We started to quickly add followers.

One aspect that peaked my interest was Twitter search because I realized it was a way to see if people are talking about our company and services or the clients we have and their specific products and services. I wanted to understand this more in detail because it would prove to be a useful way to almost hear customers internal thoughts without asking them to fill out a comment card they wouldn't fill out anyway. I dug further by looking at our client Betty's Pies http://www.bettyspies.com a not so shameless plug for the best pies in the world which you can order online. What I found was amazing.

Not only were people talking about Betty's Pies, but I quickly realized the customer could be contacted to see what their experience was or if they would be interested in shopping on the online store. We since have created a successful campaign to respond to those who have tweeted about their experience at Betty's Pies. this assists us with building a strong relationship with the customers of Betty's Pies and meeting those customers needs. This is a fundamental premise of a successful business and so I now believe in the power of Twitter.

On another note after looking more carefully into many of our other clients situations I was intrigued to find that almost every client we have could benefit from using Twitter. Some of the clients the answer wasn't as obvious as it was with Betty's Pies because their brand was not that popular. However, in almost every case we have found that we can do things to increase business for our clients using Twitter. I would invite you to connect with us on our Blog, Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook accounts (links are on this blog) to learn more about what PremierSpot iMarketing can do for your business.

Christopher Swanson
CEO
PremierSpot iMarketing

Search engine optimization for your business

So much gets placed on search engine optimization and the power it has. Well I wanted to let you know that there is a very valid reason for this. Using the analogy that you website is like a brick and mortar and Search engine optimization is like making sure that the store has nice big signs on it so that the consumer sees what you are selling. The great part is that it also allows the search engines such as google, yahoo and msn to find you online as well. This gives you the ability to use relevant keywords and promote your products and services.

Imagine if you business was located behind 56 other businesses that did somewhat the same thing you did. This is often what we find when we are doing our free site assesment for businesses looking to better understand how they can move up in the search rankings. The reason for this is the business has put the signs out but often does not realize they are in the back of the building.

There are some very basic and key principals to Search Engine Optimization.


1. It is critical to identify the keywords which are relevant to your products and services

2. It is important to use page naming correctly

3. Writing good content that integrates the keywords with the content of the site.

4. Meta tags are as important now as they have been since the search bots came out.

5. You cannot expect that one page of text is going to ge you clients unless you are going to go away from a search engine optimization strategy and go to a search engine marketing strategy. (future blog)


This is a very simplistic approach to search engine optimization because we find so many sites have little to none on search engine optimization.

Contact me today and we can assist you with a search engine optimization strategy.

Chris Swanson
PremierSpot.biz

Why accurate Google Maps are Important!

One of the first things we look at for any of our local business clients is the Google Maps. Often we find that their business is misplaced on the Google map and the business owner cannot figure out how to edit the location of their business on the Google map so that it is correct. Google does not make this process easy by any means.

If you think this is an uncommon occurrence guess again. In the past week we have gone through each of our clients to see if there was any locations that were inaccurate in Google Maps. Almost 50% of the locations were inaccurate. We started asking our clients if they knew about this and that is when the stories started coming out.

One of our clients chuckled when they said that they had one time seen their location in Lake Superior. I can't imagine the frustration of their customer who was trying to find the business location.

I guess the next question is how do you solve this problem. We can assist you with this if you contact us. Click here to contact PremierSpot

Duluth MN Website Design and Online Marketing Tips

If you're looking for web design and internet marketing for your business here are some basic tips to adhere to.

1. Talk to a company that has been in the business for awhile. Ask how long they have been building websites and also ask to see some of their work. http://www.premierspot.biz

2. A good website and online marketing company will put together a plan for you and clearly lay it out in writing in a proposal. Just like anything in business get it in writing. http://www.premierspot.biz

3. We often find that analytics (web traffic sources and tracking) are not in place so no matter how nice the site is or how easy it is to navigate, you will never know what brought people to your website or what caused them to leave. http://www.premierspot.biz

4. Keyword analysis...All search on the internet is based on keywords because you use these words to try and find relevant content. It is critical to do an assessment of what keywords you need to persue in order to be succesful. The internet is a big place, but if you break it down into smaller pieces even the smallest company can have lots of success. http://www.PremierSpot.biz

5. Look for results in everything that is done. One reason I really love placing analytics on my clients sites right away is because we can quickly get our hands around the traffic and what people are doing. Often minor tweaks once it is clear what clients are doing on your site, will cause you to get the sales you are looking for.

6. The most important piece of advice I give to my clients is make sure you budget for this and be in it for the long haul. Having a slice of the internet creates a lot of value if you ever need to sell your business. Most importantly it generates business for you.


Chris Swanson is CEO of PremierSpot iMarketing located on the beautiful North Shore of Lake Superior in Two Harbors, Minnesota.

Check out PremierSpot's Facebook location as well as Linkedin and Twitter at http://

Internet Marketing Landing Pages

Landing pages have been around for a number
of years. Back in the day they were set-up for the search engines.
Over time people realized that these "landing pages" not only were
good for the search engines, but were good at converting visitors
because the content matched what they were looking for.

So at this point there are a number of different kinds of landing
pages. Our initial landing pages are set-up for conversions. They
allow the visitor to fill out the form, sign-up and get more
information all on the same page. At some point our long-term plan
is to add more pages to a site that are SEO'd properly and they
would also serve as landing pages for those terms.

So, in Today's SEO world landing pages are used when referring to pages that "convert" as well as to "drive traffic" from search engines.

The following links point to a few landing pages that we did recently. They are constructed very simply. Just one image at the top (search engines love simplicity) followed by a health amount of text below which will allow the pages to rank well for the clients desired terms. Yet, a page such as this, with an appealing graphic is something of a billboard as well and gives aus a great oppotunity to sell the prioduct visually and induce a click-through or conversion by enticing the user to fill out the form, thus providing yet another lead for our client.

Think of the pages below in terms of a billboard on a highway. The text at the bottom could be considered as a way to get people to drive by (a prime location) because it pulls people in from the search engines. The graphic at the top could be considered as the billboard.

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