Do You Need an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant?

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Aug 15, 2008 10:33:00 AM

    I asked Shari Sultana, an Internet Marketing Virtual Assistant, to write a quick article about why her clients choose to hire her, or someone like her. I have quite a few clients that could generate more leads if they had more time to committ to their content creation, link building, social media activity, etc. Some of them should consider hiring her.

    If you're a small business owner you already know that time is a precious commodity. Most, if not all, small business owners wear many hats. They are the CEO, the sales department, the marketing department, the customer service department, the purchasing department and the accounting department. But doing all of these jobs leaves little to no time for building the business and increasing the profits.

    Spending all your time working in your business leaves no time left to work on your business. Even if you do have a little extra time to work on your business most small business owners are either too tired or have personal commitments to attend to. Wouldn't it be great if you could just buy yourself more time? But wait, you can!

    Ever heard the term "Virtual Assistant"? Virtual Assistants (or VAs) are an industry of small business owners whose business is to provide administrative and/or marketing support to other small business owners, all via the internet. Internet Marketing Virtual Assistants specialize in providing internet marketing support to small business owners who lack the time or skill to do their own internet marketing. Small business owners who hire the services of an internet marketing virtual assistant have the time to work on building their business and increasing their profits. Their VA does everything from helping with on page SEO, link building, press releases, article submissions, blogging, setting up and maintaining their social networking profiles, maintaining their websites, tracking their web analytics, and setting up their PPC campaigns.

    VAs are independent contractors which means no employee taxes, benefits or overhead for the small business owners who hire them. VAs also work on an as needed basis which means no long term commitment is necessary. Virtual Assistants can be the answer to many time strapped business owners. In business, time is money. Leveraging the services of a virtual assistant could be the answer to your business success.

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    Topics: internet marketing, blog coach, internet marketing virtual assistant, internet marketing coach

    Measuring the Impact of Social Media on Your Business

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Feb 9, 2008 8:13:00 AM

    Most small and mid sized businesses are just dipping their toes into blogging. With keyword research and a good analytics package, it's not hard to plan and measure how blogging will impact the bottom and top lines for a business. If it's an ecommerce site, blogging is a no brainer. If you're a b2b company trying to generate leads... again... a no brainer. If you're b2c and people are passionate about your types of products (ie you sell wine not hammers), also a no brainer. If you're a realtor, you should be talking to Real Estate Tomato about how to start a real estate blog... umm... yesterday. (Of course, you shouldn't underestimate what's required to be successful with a blog - no matter who you are or what you sell.)

    All that said, social media is still the wild west. There's no best practices. There are very few services that assist business owners in a meaningful way. The only businesses that are taking advantage of social media are big brand name F1000 companies. They have the budgets to deal directly with the big social networks and the budgets to tap the big ad agencies who deal with the big social networks.

    Everyone else is sorta left figuring this out themselves. I've been able to successfully generate leads from social media activity. So has the internet marketing company I work for. We teach our clients best practices for the sites that actually drive traffic directly, and support our clients' SEO strategy. We also give them the tools to analyze effectiveness in terms of traffic, leads and soon: sales across their SEO, PPC, blogging, and blogosphere/social media activity. This informs what works and what they should do more of. For example, if Digg reaches your audience, you should learn how to use Digg. If you're trying to reach a younger crowd, join facebook. If you're trying to reach CEOs, start answering questions and endorsing people on LinkedIN.

    But, this list could go on and on. How does someone know where to focus their efforts and how do they measure what's working before the leads come in? As this map indicates, you could literally spend all of 2008 registering and learning social media services. There certainly isn't a comprehensive tool within the reach of the average mid sized business to track all the leading indicators of social media success or failure. However, is it really necessary to track the leading indicators? If you have a website that converts visitors into leads and you can successfully generate traffic from social media sources and measure which social media sites send visitors with a high likelihod of converting to a lead... then... I'm left with the conclusion that you should just find yourself a social media advisor. I'm sure that 1 out of 50,000 people are like me (or the guys at Read/Write Web) who spend too much time tracking the social media landscape, who can interpret it and translate it for the average business owner so they know what to do first.

    And if in doubt and you don't want to find an advisor, start with LinkedIn. If you're in business, chances are that your best prospects are on there.

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    Topics: blog advisor, social media advisor, lead generation, social media marketing, marketing analytics, linkedin, blogging, blog coach

    Wanted: Blog Coaches/Blog Advisors

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Feb 6, 2008 7:05:00 PM

    Bruce Mendehlson and I have been chatting by email about this. I also spoke to Debra Simpson on the West Coast about this. I plan to speak with Rita Coco and Allison Chisholm about this too.

    But, Bruce is the first one that has demonstrated some knowledge about what I think is required to make blogging work for businesses. Here's his thoughts:

    There are A LOT of blogs out there, and many (in fact, most) are poorly written, rambling, off subject and add little (if any) value that relates back to the product, service, or business someone is trying to promote.

    After all, it's challenging to compose relevant, compelling content on a regular basis--after a few dismal attempts most business owners move on to something else. It's not that they don't have the desire; they don't have the time or the discipline to devote to a labor-intensive product like a blog.

    The key is to help your clients understand how a blog (or a podcast, RSS feed, widget, etc.) should and must be integrated within a broader marketing and communications plan. For example, if they have a product in R&D or coming to market, they'll want to use the blog to build interest in and excitement about the product or service. They'll want to create a dialogue with consumers in which consumers can share their thoughts about the product or service.

    When it comes to blogging in our Web 2.0 world, it's all about the 5 C's: Collaboration, Content, Converged services, Community, and Conversation. Your job is not only to help business owners understand the important of blogging, but also to invest the necessary resources (time and money) to creating a well-written, interactive online dialogue through their blog.

    This is extremely well said. Blogging is just a tool. It's how you use it that's critical.

    I've signed on about 15 companies since the beginning of the year who all are in the process of starting their blog, at my suggestion. But, it's not something to enter into lightly. And it's not something I'd recommend someone do until they develop a strategy.

    Blogging should fit into a strategy that supports the business. The ultimate goal of most marketing activities should be to generate interest from qualified prospects. So blogging should fit into their traffic and online lead generation strategy. In order to get the most out of it, the following should be done first:

    1. Search Engine Optimization Keyword research to inform topics that should be written about. 
    2. Launching a blog on a blogging platform that is optimized for SEO and community development - on your own domain name.
    3. Reading and commenting on other blogs in order to start entering the conversation. 
    4. A system in place that tracks new links, traffic and leads generated from the blogging activities.

    If you don't do all of this, you run the risk of writing a blog that noone reads and adds no value to your business.

    But, as Bruce points out it's equally important to go into blogging knowing that this is an investment of time and money, like any other marketing expenditure. So, it requires the right resources to pull it off.

    In order to help my clients, I'm seeking a stable of professional writers who I can recommend. If you know anyone, please send them to this post and ask them to contact me here. I'm going to need to be comfortable that they can do what Bruce talks about, but also do what I bulleted above.

    They are going to need to be able to coach clients towards their business goals using blogs as a tool.

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    Topics: keyword research, blog coaching, seo blogging, SEO, blogging, blog coach

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