Thanks.

The Daly Communications Group Team

Step 1: Define your target market and positioning statement

Who is your target customer?
Where are they located? 
What are their defining characteristics? 
What are their needs? 
How do we want to be positioned in the mind of your target customer? 

You need to answer these basic questions before you can develop or implement any of your marketing objectives and strategies. 

Step 2: Develop a SWOT Analysis

It is important to know what you do well, and what you still need to work on.  You also need to identify factors that are within your control and those that are external to your business.  A SWOT Analysis breaks down a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

• Strengths are the internal attributes of the organization that are helpful in achieving objectives and can be used as a basis in determining your competitive advantage.
• Weaknesses are the internal attributes that are harmful or unfavorable to achieving objectives.
• Opportunities are external conditions that are helpful to achieving the objective.
• Threats are changes to the external environment that may damage your business’ performance. 

Once you have completed your SWOT analysis, you need to evaluate each component individually.  You should decide how you can use each strength, how you can improve upon each weakness, how to exploit every opportunity, and mitigate each threat. 

Step 3: Know your competition

After you have determined who your target market is and evaluated your SWOTs, you need to know the ins and outs of your competition. 

Where is the competition located relative to you-local vs. national vs. global competitive landscape?
How do their products/services compare to yours?
What is their competitive advantage and how does it compare to yours?
How does their product/service offering compare to yours?
Do they utilize the web?

Answering these types of questions will help you learn what your competition does right and adopt some of these practices, while also learning what your competitive advantages are and learning how to leverage these. 

Step 4: Define your marketing objectives

You need to determine what you want to accomplish from your marketing plan and set goals and objectives to measure your success.  Marketing objectives establish the goals and standards of marketing efforts pertaining to products, sales, and marketing that must be achieved in order to fulfill the overall objectives of the company.  These objectives will help measure marketing success and gain insight into underlying conditions facing the company that cannot be seen with financial measures. 

What are your target market objectives?

You need to determine how many new customers you expect to gain with respect to your marketing efforts.  This could be defined by an increase of 100 new customers this year, or increase new customers by 25% over last year. 

What are your objectives for existing customers?

Everyone always says it’s cheaper to keep an existing customer than gaining a new one.  It is important to focus your marketing efforts towards your existing customers.  Upsell. Upsell. Upsell.  Your objectives could be defined by an increase in existing customer spending by 20%, or increase existing customer spending by $10,000 this year. 

What are your promotion objectives?

Examples of promotional objectives could be to build brand awareness in a certain area or among a specific target market, increase website traffic, increase traffic to your store, to differentiate your product or service, etc.  Promotion is just one aspect of the Marketing Mix, which is also known as the 4 P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, and Place).  Make sure that your promotional objectives are clearly stated and measureable.  To achieve these promotion objectives, keep in mind that there are four main ways to promote your business: advertising, publicity, sales promotion, and personal selling.   

What are your research and development objectives?

Do you plan on developing new products or services in the future?  It is important that you continue to conduct market research to make sure that you are coming up with the products and services that meet the needs of tomorrow’s customers.  Consumer preferences are constantly changing so it is imperative that you stay on top of consumer trends and continue to create better products, and improve your overall operational processes.
 
Step 5: Implement your marketing strategies

In order to achieve your marketing objectives, you need to determine the programs and methods that will be the most effective while still staying within your budget.  Some inexpensive suggestions include:

• Direct Mail
• E-newsletters
• Contests
• Sponsorships
• Trade Shows
• Development or Redesign of your Website
• Publicity
• Networking
• Distribution of Marketing Materials (Brochures, Business Cards, Flyers)
• Product Demos
• Search Engine Optimization
• E-promotion
• Develop Programs to retain existing customers (preferred customer programs, referral programs, etc.)

Be creative.  Every business is different so test out different methods and figure out what works best for you.  If your business is really limited on budget, but are willing to put in the time, energy, and imagination, you can also use a more unconventional approach toward promotion called guerrilla marketing.  Guerilla marketing involves targeting customers in an unexpected way that is memorable, generates buzz, and is in turn spread virally.  Guerrilla marketing has also been referred to as buzz marketing and viral marketing.  Check out this blog for a list of 50 guerrilla marketing tactics you can try. 

Step 6: Set your marketing budget

Setting your marketing budget can be difficult, especially as a small business with a limited amount of money available to allocate toward marketing in the first place.  One of the biggest mistakes a small business can make is to cut back on the marketing budget first when money is tight, or neglect to establish a budget and play it by ear.  How do you expect to grow your business if your target market doesn’t know you exist?  Many businesses will set their marketing budget as a percentage of net sales, typically ranging from 1 percent up to about 10 percent of net sales.  Here are a few factors to consider when determining your budget:

• Are you a new competitor in the marketplace?  If so, you will have to spend more to establish market share.  Likewise, if you have an established market share, you may need to spend more to maintain your share. 
• If you are competing in a fast-growing market, you will need to spend more on marketing.
• Are you competing on price?  Both very high-priced and low-priced products and services require higher marketing expenditures to convince your target market that your product is a good value.
• If product quality is one of your main selling points, you will need to spend more to convince customers that your product is unique.

Step 7: Measure your success

In order to track the progress of your marketing plan, you need to establish a set of controls to measure success.  Some measureable controls include customer surveys, monitoring website traffic, performance of promotional activities, budget analysis, sales analysis, etc.  Setting controls will allow you to monitor your proposed plans as they proceed and make adjustments as needed to get back on track.

Millions of people use the internet everyday to do research, find products or services to buy, or look for something local.  Approximately 80% of consumers research a product or service online before choosing to make a purchase offline from a local business and 84% of all internet traffic is referred through search engines.  We type the keywords we are looking for into a search engine, like Google, and select websites from the list given.  Why some sites are displayed before others is merely an afterthought to many web users.  For internet marketers, search engine optimization is a service provided to their business customers who want to increase internet presence and turn site traffic into sales.  In 2009, Google will change the way we search by personalizing results for each person based on their location and search history.

Google’s search results are based on continuously changing algorithms that rank sites based on keywords and link building.  The new personalized search results will be different- they will be based on the behavior and the intent of the individual web user.  Each person will end up with different search results based on their prior search history and their physical location.  Google gets your information through cookies left on your computer after visiting a site and from your local IP address.  The information allows Google to make assumptions about your search.

At PubCon 2008, the Webmaster’s World Search and Internet Marketing Conference held in Las Vegas November 11-14, industry experts spoke about the future of Google and search engine optimization (SEO).  Matt Cutts, a software engineer for Google, spoke about the future of search engine optimization and personalization of search results in 2009.  When he was asked if site ranking is dead, Cutts said, “I’m not sure I would say ranking is dead but it’s not as important as it used to be.  The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings.  They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log.  It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.  The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don’t worry about ‘can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.’ ”

Ranking may not be dead, but it will be considered less important.  The most important way to measure your site’s success will be focusing on site traffic, conversion, and bounce rates rather than where your site shows up in the rankings for specific keywords.  Search personalization will make site traffic more qualified, and although your overall site traffic may decrease, overall sales will increase.  Rich media content will be vital and websites with compelling content and relevant keywords, images, voice, video, and other interactive functions will succeed. 

So what does this mean for internet marketers, business owners, and individual search experience in general?  For internet marketers, this may mean a change in the way success is measured for customers.  It will require better definitions of the ideal website visitor- based on quality, rich media content, and a specific call-to-action to keep visitors on your site and coming back.  The internet is constantly changing and internet marketers have to be prepared to adapt to the changing technology to stay competitive. 

For business owners, this means more qualified site visitors with an improved ratio between traffic and conversion to sales.  The local impact of search personalization will help drive sales to local businesses that otherwise would not have been able to compete with national companies and spammer sites that dominated the rankings for industry keywords. 

The overall search engine experience will improve because we will no longer need to sift through countless websites until we find what we are actually looking for.  Overall website quality will improve as companies will enhance their websites to include more media content and interactive functions to improve visitor experience. 

Google’s personalization should motivate us all to evaluate our existing web sites and make sure:

• content provides the information that the target customer is looking for and is up-to-date.
• the site offers interactive features and different types of media that customers would find interesting.
• the site is easy to navigate and has a call-to-action to turn visitors into sales. 

Taking these steps now will ensure that you are prepared for the new era of information search.

If the majority of your visitors are unique and from direct traffic, it means your present customers and word-of-mouth prospective clients are the majority of your visitors and they don’t have many reasons to return to your site.

I’m inferring that your present customers are only coming to your site once in their entire relationship with you. Maybe a few times later, to get your business phone number or email, but that is the extent of their browsing at your site. They have no reason to come back. They read the brochure in the beginning…and that’s all the website really acts as.

Your Site Should Be a Commerce/Living/ Entertainment/Industry/Business – Workspace!

Looking to the future, you need to incorporate the tools and attractions that can keep customers coming back and drawing in prospective clients.

Offering tools, information, and an open communication portal to your business can increase revenue. Revenue is available from both sides: existing customers and prospective clients, and your site should cater to the needs of both. However, as it is at least half the cost to keep a customer than to sign a new one, it is a better investment to make your existing customers your primary target.

Many of the proposals I suggest in the following sections apply to both, existing customers and prospective clients. Some initiatives are available to both sides and some are available only to existing customers, but will be incentives for prospective clients to join you.

Chat Options

This adds a whole new aspect of communication with existing clients and prospective customers. Questions and inquiries can be answered quickly and easily with multiple users. All of your employees can communicate with existing and prospective clients in real time while completing other projects – in other locations. Minor conversations can be done while you are with a client, on the phone with another client, or on a conference call. This service can easily be turned on or off (Chat available/Chat not available) and usually can be used from any remote location (install software). Many business sites offer some form of chat as most people prefer to not get stuck on the phone or wait days for a return email.

Chat options are available from many sources:

• Every Chat
• ParaChat
• Website Alive
• Help On Click

Quote Calculator

Web users are looking for answers - direct answers, quick answers, customized answers. They want prices, processes, and plans all laid out before they give up any money. If your business is based on quote pricing, a basic quote calculator can give prospective customers a feeling of immediacy and an estimate of their cost with you. Many customers have no idea what the cost of your product/service will be or even what they can or should budget for it. This calculator can help customers figure out what they want to pay and what they have to pay. Giving them this information has them trusting you up front and coming back when they are ready.

Existing customers can use different versions of quote calculators to get quotes for added services. Different versions of quote calculators could be provided to provide customized prices of new services and helping the customer decide whether the extra services are necessary and cost effective on your terms.

A lot of web development companies use quote calculators:

• Pink Link
• Buyer Zone
• Pumpkin Pip
• Bjorn Enki

However, tools for creating quote calculators are sparse:

• MovePoint
• Crystal Myst

Forums and B2B Communications

Turning your site into a hub of communication (and therefore information) for businesses (mostly your clients) can bring existing customers and prospective customers together to discuss the business environment in your industry or geographical location. You can provide questions, have businesses discuss their strategies, and argue problems in your industry or geographical region. If you become the hall where the “business club” meets, you help shape its future. Since you have direct communication with all of our clients, you can inform them about its creation and new topics being discussed. This process could easily gain momentum and expand past your clients quickly into your industry or geographical location.

Forum tools are available:

• Ektron
• Near-Time

Client Directory – Extended Beyond

Along the same lines as the forums, an online business directory of your clients could pool more businesses under your roof. Even if your clients only want backlinks and profiles for Search Engine Optimization purposes, you gain by adding their business to your growing index of businesses. As this gains momentum and you offer it beyond your clients, businesses can become part of a categorized directory which connects them to each other, your business, and beyond.

Directory creation scripts are available:

• CreaScripts
• Big WebMaster

Company Growth, Confirmation, and Security

With the incredible saturation of spammers on the web today, web users’ trust is strained and their skepticism is at its summit. You need to provide users with concrete information instead of the phrase, “…and much, much more!”

Variable tickers of how many clients your business services could be made available on your site easily (I’m not talking about a visitor counter; it’s something you can control and add or subtract from). Maybe a map of your state or country where all your clients are located would work.

Certifications in different technologies and companies can be obtained cheaply and predominantly displayed on the site.

Testimonials from clients should be pasted all over. Right now, there is no proof that your site is not a spamming site with nothing to show other than a few products and an About Us page. Are you hiding your past? Have you pleased no one with your work?

Actual interview ready Résumés should be provided. It’s great to have bios of employees, but people looking to hire you want résumé type information, like what previous experience your staff has had, not necessarily that you’re just good people. This shows professionalism and makes users’ lives easier when they can print a Résumé, show it to their boss, and hire your business.

Client counters and/or maps:

• No examples found of actual client counter (not visitor counter)
• HooYou Client map
• Cindy Collier Client Map

Web Developer Certifications:

• HTML Writer’s Guild
• Certified Internet Web Professional Program

Site/Business Verification:

• Trust Guard
• Trust Seals
• Better Business Bureau
• Truste

Customer testimonials:

• Inventive Designers Customer Quotes
• Step Two Client Testimonials

Résumés provided on site:

• CDC Studios Résumé(s)

Web Tools

Users are constantly looking for tools and sites that make web life easier and provide more information. Offering sites and tools to existing and prospective clients can help open the doors of communication and knowledge. People are becoming more web savvy and willing to try new sites and tools to see if they provide the information and functions they want. A collection of the best sites and tools on the web related to your industry can be provided on your website in a couple hours. This tool also creates a gateway to further collections, articles, and E-Books (possibly) you could offer. If the 1st tool collection is free and they like it, they may buy a collection of articles put into an E-Book for $30. If they’ll buy the book, maybe they’ll join a 3 hour seminar (webinar, etc…) for $100 – the list goes on. If you are either the only or easiest connection to a great site or tool, people will use your site as a portal.

Sites offering great tools and/or further information (articles, E-Books, seminars):

• SEO Book
• Recommended Web Tools
• Web Warrior Tools

Members Login

This obviously applies only to your existing clients. Setting up a database of all your clients and providing them with access to their accounts can save you literally hundreds of hours of work that constantly keep bubbling up (and provide you with a database of your clients).

Each account would include:

Account Info

• Business’s (customer) information (name, address, phone)
• Purchased services or products
• Product/Service info like manuals and warranties

Help Desk (Support Tickets)

• Support ticket system would help make sure all clients’ problems are solved completely and in a timely manner.
• Possibly outsource for 24/7 coverage
• Support ticket software: Helpdesk Pilot, Trouble Ticket Express

Bill Pay – saves time, postage and printing money, and will encourage more businesses to pay on time (automated reminders, remove human element)

• Automated billing, plan out billing periods more easily, no more scrambling on the 30th
• Bill pay companies: PayPal, Authorize
• Printable invoices, view invoices over time, no more arguments over costs or price changes

Client Involvement – Helps Them, Helps You

Just as you involve businesses to interact with each other through your site, you should be getting pieces of them as well (for their and your benefit).

• Have clients write articles about your industry and their business. You can feature an ad by them on your site in exchange.
• Written interviews with your clients about the industry and their business and offer a link to them and Press Release of the article.
• Of course, this would be the perfect avenue for Podcasting for your business. Video can be done with any digital camera or you can just use audio. You could have monthly interviews with one of your clients and what the industry is doing for their business and the problems they face. This could make your customers feel cared for and put their name out (along with yours). Prospective clients can see you care about your clients. Takes only about an hour a month and could get the attention of both sides: existing and prospective customers.

Client articles:

• Leo Morgan

Business podcasts:

• Podcast Alley: Business
• Small Biz Pod
• Podtech

Up To The Minute Homepage

Using a Blog like setup with new info on main page at top and build down will help you look like you’re there everyday. An “updated last: date” can really be added anytime and falsified easily. New info added all the time, whether incredibly relevant or not, could really pull you out of what looks like an old website. Haven’t found any sites presently using this outside of blogs and news sites, but if you can explain your business rather succinctly, there is plenty of room on the homepage for updated information to be front and center.

Billboard v. Workspace

If you use your website more like a workspace with your clients, they’ll starting walking in the front door like you have a store front. They’ll see how you work, what you have to offer, and that you can back it up. People walking by will start peering in the windows and coming in to see what you offer and your qualified past. If your site remains a billboard, existing and prospective clients will just drive on by.

Daly Communications Group offers all of these workspace options and more not included here. Contact us for a consultation to make sure your prospective clients aren’t just driving by and your present clients aren’t just driving by once for the phone number.

Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of internet marketing.  These social media networks involve  interacting with existing or potential customers to promote your brand, website, or business.  Social media networks come in a variety of different applications including social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, business networking sites like LinkedIn and Jigsaw, blog sites like WordPress and Blogger, multimedia sites like YouTube and Flickr, and social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. 

How can Social Media Marketing benefit my business?

Did you know that approximately 80% of consumers research a product or service online before choosing to make a purchase offine from a local business?  You can’t afford not to have an online presence.  During an economic downturn, many companies will cut back on their marketing efforts as a natural reaction, but completely shutting down marketing is not a wise business decision.  Although customers may be holding on to their money a little tighter, there are still those customers out there looking for your products and services and spending money.  If you cut your marketing efforts altogether, how will customers know that you’re there?

When money is tight, maybe you should consider investing more time rather than money into creativity and resourcefulness.  The use of social media marketing can amplify traditional marketing practices, like writing press releases or special promotions and advertising.  For example, if you send a press release about a new product or service that you are offering, distribute the press release as normal, but also write about it on your blog, talk about it on Facebook and Twitter, upload a video to YouTube, etc.  You want to integrate the news across all channels of communication. 

Social media marketing is an opportunity to commuicate directly with your target market.  The main difference between social media marketing and other traditional forms of marketing is the tone used to communicate your message.  With SMM, you want to be more conversational and not hit people over the head with over-the-top marketing language.  Think of social media marketing as a conversation between you and your customers in which you share information about your company while connecting with customers and giving them the opportunity to share their comments and opinions with you.  Those comments and opinions are valuable information that you can use to improve your business.

An important thing to note is that social networking is a two-way street.  You need to stay on top of all the comments people are leaving on your blog or anywhere else.  Negative feedback and comments can actually hurt you more than help if they are not addresses properly.  Also, make sure that you take the time to find out if people are discussing your products/services on other blogs, Facebook pages, etc. and try to control the discussion to remain positive in your favor. 

How do I implement a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Although social media marketing might not be the right fit for every business, there is still some marginal benefit to jumping on the social media bandwagon with a moderate investment in time and money. 

Blogging

One application that can be implemented in a social media marketing strategy is starting a blog.  Blogging offers an outlet for you to communicate with your customers and open up a dialogue about your industry in general, the latest news surrounding your company, and even information about yourself.  Comments are what make blogs important, so write often, respond to customer comments, and make comments on other industry related blogs to really join the conversation.  Most blogs are free to set up, but you can also contact a web developer to set-up a blog for you on your server and make sure the design and set-up is consistent with your company image and current website. 

Marketing Experiments did a 12 month study, in which they compared the effectiveness of a Google Adwords campaign to a social media marketing campaign.  They created several sites in different niches to gather information from.  They compared hiring an employee at $10/hour to blog, create content, and work to drive traffic to the sites to using Google Adwords to drive targeted traffic (they paid up to $0.75/click in their Adwords campaign).  The result: Social Media Optimization campaign yielded 1427% greater return on investment than the pay-per-click campaign. 

Videos and Pictures

Another application you can use in your social media marketing strategy is using video and pictures to your advantage.  You can create how-to videos on using your products, create virtual tours of your facility, etc. and then upload these videos to your website as well as social media sites like YouTube.  Check out a video a customer of ours, BioAxxis-a manufacturer of fingerprint locks, put together about their products.  You can also take quality pictures of your products or services and upload them to sites like Flickr that allow you to add your photos and then join active photo groups and network with others who would be interested.  Check out this helpful blog on How to Market on Flickr for more ideas. 

Networking

There are two different types of networking sites- social and professional networking sites.  Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace allow you to link to classmates, friends, family, and other colleagues.  You can list your interests, hobbies, keep everyone updated on what you’re up to, and even upload photos and videos of yourself.  These social networking sites are a mix of a person’s personal and professional image.  You can find your target market on these social sites by joining groups and talking with them directly.  You can also advertise on these sites on a pay-per-click basis.

Professional networking sites like LinkedIn are designed to keep a strictly all-business look and feel.  These sites allow you to build a network of former and current colleagues, clients, partners, and other trusted contacts.  Ultimately through these networks you can find potential clients, service providers, business opportunities, discover inside connections you didn’t know existed, and get introduced to other professionals through the people you know.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a form of SMM that allows others to “bookmark” your blogs, articles, etc.  This means that others are coming across your site or blog and are saving your links to share with others or remember for the future.  The more social bookmarks your articles and blogs receive, the more people who will read them.  The number one benefit of social bookmarking, like StumbleUpon and Digg, will be increased site traffic.  That means increased awareness, blog readership, feed subscribers, and the like. 

Are you ready for social marketing success?

Do your homework before implementing your social media marketing campaign and you will be successful.  Be thoughtful and put in the time and creativity necessary to reach your goals.  Establish what your SMM goals are first and then decide what social media applications are the right ones to achieve those goals.  Determine what Return on Investment (ROI) is appropriate for your strategy, whether it’s increased sales, increased brand awareness, increased site traffic, etc. and whether it’s worth your time investment.   If your social media goals and ROI appear within reach, then don’t hesitate and get started on your social media marketing strategy today!

Yes, a free site for one lucky New York state resident - a new design for a new company, a new site for an existing company or a redesign of your current website!

Of course it’s a contest and all contests have to have some rules, so here they are:

OFFICIAL RULES:

• No purchase necessary.
• Contest begins 11/01/08 and ends 02/28/09.
• To be eligible, must be a resident of New York State and website must be for legitimate business purposes only. All others need not apply.
• Limit one entry per person. Multiple submissions will nullify entry.
• Contest registration available through online submission forms only.
• Winner will be selected at random and notified on Monday, March 2, 2009 by e-mail.
• Odds of winning will depend on the number of contest entrants.
• Website valued at $3000 which includes forms, graphics, text, and design. Website does not include photography, logo design, domain registration or hosting.
• We reserve the right to withdraw prize if winner does not intend to use site for legitimate business purposes, or fails to meet eligibility requirements.

Want to know where to register!

Visit our site and use the form to register: daly-communications.com/website_giveaway
Good luck!

Contest is sponsored by Daly Communications Group, 8195 Cazenovia Rd., Manlius, NY 13104.

Press Releases can benefit everyone

Every business needs to promote themselves and gain brand recognition among the desired target market.  Whether you are a small local business with less than 5 employees or a multi-million dollar national corporation, writing press releases to generate publicity can benefit your business tremendously. The key is to know what to write your press release about, how to write and format is correctly, and who to send the press release to.

If done correctly, a press release can improve your business’s visibility, improve name recognition, increase traffic to your website, and build rapport with important media contacts. Not to mention, submitting online press releases can improve search engine optimization (SEO), which means increasing the number of links to your site which will improve your site’s ranking on search engines like Google and Yahoo. Online press release optimization is only as good as the presentation, position, and performance of the release, however.

What do I write a press release about?

Your press release should be interesting and newsworthy. It should also be timely which means it is relative to the events happening at large as well as relative to a publication’s editorial calendar. If it’s not then no one will want to read it and the news media won’t publish it. Press releases can be written about new products or services that you recently introduced, the addition of new employees, partnerships or acquisitions, announcing the opening or relocation of your business, sponsorship of charitable events, gaining important contracts with other companies, awards and community recognition, or any other news that is a story - not an advertisement. Virtually anything can be a story as long as you put the right spin on it and give it the angle it needs to generate interest.

Remember to K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Your press release should answer all the “W” questions: who, what, where, when, and why. Keep in mind you’re not writing for your target market like you would with advertising copy; you are writing to appeal to journalists and fulfill their requirements by answering the question “Why would readers care?”. Your headline should not boast your product or service benefits, but rather proclaim your story’s newsworthiness. You only have a few seconds to capture the reader’s attention, so make your headline count.

How to write a press release correctly in 8 simple steps

Once you have determined what you will write your press release about, you need to make sure that you format is correctly.

Step 1 - You need to include release instructions, whether it is for “immediate release” or “for release on some future date.” Make sure you include this at the top of your release.

Step 2 - It is important to list contact information including a contact person, company name, phone, fax, website URL, and e-mail address.

Step 3 - The headline should be short (aim for less than 10 words) and attention-grabbing. DO NOT WRITE IN ALL CAPS or use exclamation marks!!!

Step 4 - Write a summary of a few sentences which summarizes what your press release is about and acts as an extenstion to your headline.

Step 5 - The body of your press release should always begin with: City, State, Month, Day, Year- Then you can begin your story.  Aim to keep the body within 400-500 words maximum. Make sure your story is relevant, and give it a sense of urgency.

Step 6 - Don’t forget to include an about section which should summarize your company. Include your product or service offering and where the business is located and conducts business. Do not forget to include a link to your website at the end of this section. This gives you an opportunity to drive potential customers to your website who otherwise might not have stumbled upon it.

Step 7 - You should always include a section that lets readers know where they can go for additional information. Make sure you include a contact person, their position, the name of the company, a phone number, and an e-mail address where this person can be reached.

Step 8 - When you are finished with your press release, end it with ### centered at the bottom. The three #’s signal the end of the press release.

You can view some cample press release formats at the following sites:
Example 1, Example #2

Where should you send your press release?

When submitting a press release to the media, there are a variety of different sources to distribute the release including print, television, and online sites. If you are submitting your press release to a print or television source, make sure to send it to the most relevant contact person available and that the source you send it to makes sense for your business.

For example, if your press release is about the grand opening of a local restaurant, then you would want to send the release to a local newspaper that is read by your target market, or a local television station. Make sure that the contact person is the most relevant person to your story. You shouldn’t just default to sending the release to the editor-in-chief or the publisher. Do your research and send it to the person in charge of press releases, or someone who handles local news coverage. This will give your story a better chance of getting published.

In addition to submitting your press release to print and television media, you should take advantage of the press release sites that the web has to offer, both free and paid are available. There are many free press release websites for you to take advantage of. They create free backlinks to your website which helps with search engine optimization (SEO). Just make sure you follow each site’s guidelines for submission carefully, or else your press release will be rejected by the editor. A few good free press release websites are www.24-7pressrelease.com, www.1888pressrelease.com, www.PRlog.org, www.newswiretoday.com, and www.PRcompass.com. You can also try to Google ‘free press release websites’ for a list of more sites.

If you want to gain more exposure for your press release whether it’s for SEO purposes or to try to get your story picked up by more news media, you can also utilize paid press release sites. Some good ones to try are www.PRweb.com (better for SEO purposes), www.PRnewswire.com (best for getting your story picked up by the media), and www.PRleap.com. Remember: You get what you pay for.  Free press release sites are good if you are trying to create more links for SEO purposes, but if you are looking for something more than you might want to consider spending some money.

I hope that this gives you some insight into writing press releases and welcome additional questions and comments.

Mostly Direct Traffic: This means that your traffic is coming from your print advertising, word of mouth, and existing customers.

Direct Traffic is the one kind of traffic that refers to real-world sources. Potential customers who get your web address from your brochures/signage or heard of you from other people/businesses are typing your address in their browser to directly access your site. Depending on the percentage of your marketing you have reserved for print advertising or how long you company has been using print advertising, this number may overshadow other traffic sources. If your company has a website that isn’t very popular, but your company has been around for a while (including pre-internet), you may have a very large base of print advertising patrons and a lot of word of mouth. Including your web address on this print media and mentioning that you have a website causes more customers to actually go directly to your site for more information.

Existing customers can be tricky. Depending on your site’s setup, tools, and deployment on the web, your existing customers may be coming to your site to get information like a phone number, product pictures and data, or get caught up on your business’s up-to-date company info. The distinction between existing customers is whether they are coming again and again or just once to get contact information. Either way, they know your web address and do a b-line to your site. 

Mostly Referring Sites: This means that links to your site from other sites (whether you know about them or not) are directing customers to your site.

Referring sites are actually one of the main ranking philosophies behind search engines today. The more links on other sites to your site can help boost your rankings on search engines. However, if this is your biggest source for customers, you should be looking into where those links are coming from. Links to your site from sites that are part of your industry, refer to news about your company, or are on very trusted/popular sites, will provide you with customers and better search engine optimization. If links to your site are on spammer sites, unrelated industry sites, or use misleading text to link, the wrong customers are coming to your site and jumping back out (bounce rate) and your search engine optimization based on linking from other sites can sag.

Referring sites leave a lot out of your hands. The buying potential for anybody who comes to your site this way can vary greatly. Be sure to see where your links end up and what you can do to get your link on good sites and avoid linking with bad sites. Analyzing your bounce rate compared to your referring site percentage can help you understand who ended up at your site by accident and who is actually looking for your business.

Mostly Search Engines: This means that customers are coming to your site by search engine ranked links. This usually denotes good standing in search engines.

Most customers (approximately 84%) start their browsing at a search engine. Customers who have never heard of your business can find you based on keyword searching. New customers from around the world and regionally can find you through this traffic source. However, search engines hold all of the cards here and can change their search algorithms overnight, destroying your rankings.

To understand customers coming from search engines to your site, you must be aware of the keyword phrases they are using that lead them to your site. If they are using your company’s name to find you, then that search engine traffic is no different than direct traffic. If they are using keywords and find you, this is true search engine traffic.

Where should your site’s traffic be coming from and why?

Older (well-known) businesses: Usually, your business will have a strong base of print media from the pre-internet period. Adding your web address to that print media connects your print media customers to your website through direct traffic.

Newer (unknown) businesses: Newer businesses need all the exposure they can get. Using business connections, practical industry information, and popular social aspects of the web, your business should rack up referring site links – which will subsequently increase your site’s search engine rankings.

Service-based (regional) businesses: This type of business usually requires that its customers remain relatively local or regional. Using local business connections to create word of mouth and possibly links from their local sites can create direct and referral traffic.

Product-based (worldwide) businesses: As shipping has become easier and cheaper, products can effortlessly be shipped around the world. Getting more traffic from worldwide search engines is your best bet to get your business’s products out to your neighbor or a customer in Asia.

Information-based (n/a location) businesses: Information is only as good as its source. To become the best source for information, you need to be seen as reliable. The best way to do this is getting articles and information out into the web creating referral traffic. More referral traffic means that more people trust your information and that can build upon itself.

Asking how much a “basic” website costs is like asking someone how much a “basic” car costs or how much a “basic” house costs.  You’ve immediately got a problem-if you want to know how much a house costs you need to know how big a house you want, how many bedrooms, what part of the country you want to be in, what kind of plumbing, colors, and on and on.  Anyone who has decided it is time to buy a house quickly discovers that buying a house is a process comprised of many individual decisions.  And all of the decisions have to be prioritized-which feature is more important and are some features mutually exclusive? 

It is for this reason that it is rare to find accurate quotes for websites online.  Even honest, straightforward web developers or companies will have a difficult time giving you a specific price or sticking to that price if you, the consumer, aren’t able to make the necessary decisions and stick to them.  A good web services company will walk you through the decisions and make sure that you understand what you are deciding on and what the consequences of your decision(s) will be. 

So, having said that, here is a discussion of pricing for the only elements that are required for any website:

• Domain Name- these are available through many vendors you can find on the web.  Typically, puchasing one domain name will be under $10 a year.  They must be continually renewed however, or someone else can buy it when your registration expires. 
• Hosting Server- as with domain names, there are many, many thousands of vendors online that sell hosting space on their servers.  This will be where your web pages actually physically reside.  Some sites offer free hosting, but you usually have to buy something else with it or you can’t have your own domain name and branding on the free hosting site.  The lowest you will pay for ordinary hosting will be under $10 a month.  Depending of the features and services you want to include with your web site, you can pay many hundreds or thousands of dollars a month (e-commerce, databases, and other features add to your hosting cost).
•  Web Pages- here is the tricky part.  Web pages are simply computer files.  Creating them is free and anyone can do it if they know HTML, or if they have web design software.  There are many types of web design software now that let you create your own pages without having any technical or design background.  Some of these software packages are free with hosting, or can be downloaded inexpensively online.  So, if you are confident in your design ability, you can easily create your own pages. 

My experience however, is that creating a web site for little or no cost is not beneficial to your business.

One of the problems is that it takes time- time many small businesses do not have to spare.  In addition, design experience is often underrated or underestimated by people who have not wrestled with graphics or text.  There are entire industries founded around the study of how human beings process information and on what works on the web and what doesn’t.  With websites multiplying rapidly everyday, it has become more and more difficult to make your web site stand out, get noticied, and get traffic.  Usually, the cost of paying someone knowledgeable to design your pages and your site for you will pay for itself.  Do you want a cheap site, or do you want an effective site?

What can you expect to pay?

Some web services companies will quote you a per page price, or will give you a standard price of $500 or something similar.  These are unrealistic models of pricing web sites, unless they spell out exactly what you get for that price.  Typically, you will find that your choices are extremely limited by that kind of pricing structure. 

If and when you decide to pay someone else to design your site, what can you expect to pay?  This is even trickier- because although most companies will base a price on an hourly rate (low-end novices will charge $35-50/hour, high-end and overpriced “consultants” will charge several hundred per hour), there will be all sorts of deals and extras that are possible.  Any feature that can be a part of a web site can be sold at a discount if the web services company is a reseller for other vendors.  For example, for a programmer to develop a proprietary database for you, it might take 100 hours at $100/hour.  If a web services company buys a database package, they can resell and set it up for you for say $500, but then you will still need time to “populate” the database- another hourly rate. 

So beyond domain names, hosting, and web pages, what other features does your site need?  Beyond the three basic features, the options multiply very rapidly.  E-Commerce packages will cost somewhere between $400 and $2000 for just the software and don’t include the time it takes to set it up. 

If you want to add a blog or podcasting, or RSS feeds, there are incremental costs for those as well. 

I recommend establishing the budget for your web site first, then prioritizing the purposes and functions your web site will serve before you consider talking to a developer or your web “team”.  If you know what you can spend and what you want the site to do, it won’t be as difficult to find someone who can meet your needs.

Quality Considerations 

So, back to the initial question of this writing- let’s focus on the word “quality”.  The dictionary gives one definition of quality as a “degree of excellence”.  And what makes a web site excellent?  It must be easy to use, it must provide options, information, and have features people want.  It must be visually compelling and the whole thing has to create the desired action in the viewer.  It must be searchable, flexible, and quick-loading.   It has to do well in the search engines and it must be reliable.  

When you look over all those “qualities” ask yourself if you or someone on your team has the time and the experience to make sure your web site does all those things.  If not, work on a budget- you will want to pay someone to develop a quality web site.  Plan to spend a little time going over the features and pricing with your vendor or team.  The decisions are difficult and therefore you should do some work up front to make sure you get the site you need for the price you can afford.

Everyone knows they need a navigation bar on their web site. They know it forms a structure that allows visitors to move around the site and find that important piece of information they’ve been looking for. But what many people don’t know is that a lot of visitors may be getting lost on their site. The links are not clearly identified, are somewhat hidden, or simply don’t go where the visitor wants to go!

So how do you go about keeping visitors on your site? How can you be assured they are finding the information they need? When do you start to think about your site’s navigation - which comes first - design or the site’s navigation structure?

A common misconception about the website design process is that the starting point for any web project is how the site will look. What colors are going to be used, what typography will be used, what photos and illustrations will be used etc. But any experienced designer will tell you — it’s not.

The real starting point in the overall design process is outlining how visitors are going to move through your website.

The way information is presented, especially in larger sites, must be carefully planned. Anyone coming to your site from a link found in a search engine, a link a friend sent in an email, or a link found in a trade directory must understand where they land on your site and how they can move easily from that point.

We designers who approach design projects from the perspective of the visitor will work with you to help determine your primary navigation’s links and categories. From there, you can determine your secondary navigation’s links and subcategories. Keep your navigation simple and make all information accessible within one or two clicks. This helps ensure that visitors find information quickly without getting frustrated and deciding to search elsewhere for information or products.

Does all web navigation have to look the same?

Another misconception is that all navigation links must be positioned on the left hand side of the web page and no where else.

The real rule is that all navigation must be obvious - all primary navigation must be easy to locate. That doesn’t mean it must be on the left hand side and it must be in 12 point Arial, it must be underlined, and it must be blue.

Your site navigation must be highly visible and accessible. It should not be hidden in confusing graphics or appear in different places on different pages. You want visitors to find information quickly and clicking through as many pages as possible because they are finding the information they need – not lost and looking for a way out!

Linking within your content is also highly recommended and should be utilized not only for visitors but for search engine web crawlers as well. Nevertheless, you need to use these links with care and help visitors find answers to the questions they came to your site asking. Don’t randomly link from the body of your text; use discipline in your selections so you are sure users will know where they are, how they got there, and how to get back to where they were.

Can your site navigation benefit from a web designer’s point of view?

One final misconception is that only sales managers or marketing personnel are able to outline your website’s navigation because they know the product/service and how to best present the information.

From the perspective of your overall business, this is true. Your sales and marketing teams are saturated in your company philosophy, products/services; they live and breath it day in and day out. However, this may work against them when it comes to designing your site’s navigation. They may have a tendency to organize information the way they understand it, not the way customers need to learn it.

An experienced designer can help you understand how visitors will move through your site by offering a “fresh” perspective. From the outside looking in, designers can look at all the information you need to present. They can work with you to be sure that the information people are looking for on your site is well represented and presented in your website’s navigational structure.

Does all this time spent on navigation pay off?

In closing, creating your website’s navigation is the most important first step in the overall design of your site. The process of establishing primary and secondary categories and subcategories can be difficult and time consuming, it can be directly related to the amount of time visitors spend on your site. Once the navigation is set up, then its time to play…I mean work… with your designer on color, typography and don’t forget the amazing pictures that will truly let visitors know who you are!