Small business owners do not have the resources of larger companies when it comes to marketing on a grand scale. However, just because they can’t spend major advertising dollars to push traffic to their site doesn’t mean it can’t be done effectively. Your website represents everything your company stands for; without it your business would be dead in the water.

Digital Face

Twenty years ago brochures served as the face of a company. A strong brochure would say who you were, provide accessible information, and entice potential customers to call or visit your business. An effective website today should be no different.

One mistake of many websites is to stick as much information as possible on the homepage thinking it will give the visitor everything they need at once. What ends up happening is that the site becomes cluttered and the customer feels overwhelmed and leaves. Do not allow your website to become cluttered with needless information. Your site needs to be direct and to the point.

Make sure your homepage allows for easy communication between you and the potential client.  Tell them your products and service, but keep it simple. If they want to learn more, think about creating a forum to engage a potential community.

Have your “Call to Action” feature be clear and precise so that the visitor can take the next step towards getting what they want and keeping them satisfied. Also always have a form where people can submit information to you if they are interested.

Bringing Traffic Your Way

Once you create a website that is well designed and capable of capturing leads you face the critical issue of actually getting traffic to your website. There are several different ways to accomplish this. Paid search advertising is a common one. Google search and AdCenter (Bing, Yahoo, MSN) are the major search engines that offer paid advertising to boost your traffic, but they aren’t very cost effective.

There are certainly less costly alternatives to drive a lot of traffic, such as using a social network for small businesses owners who looking to connect when building leads. Sites like these are a great place to start boosting your traffic — for example, my company SaleSpider currently boasts 900,000 members as of October 2011 and over a million job postings.

Search engine optimization (SEO) also drives traffic. It’s a slower approach then direct paid advertising. You need to have your website not only indexed by Google, but able to achieve a solid ranking so you can have more hits to your site.

Make sure your keywords and titles match easily indexed words by Google’s search. Try not to go for highly competitive keywords as it may take a long time before you even hit the second page of a Google search, let alone the first.

Just a Taste…

The online marketplace can be a savage beast, but with the right tips and strategies you can maximize your potential for strong traffic. This was simply an introduction summary to optimizing your website.  In our next installment, I will go into greater detail each of these and on other opportunities to drive revenue for your site.

Having a website without getting traffic on the web is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing but no one else does. Make yourself visible and heard, and you will find opportunities come to you.

In the case study below, Liquidus created a lead-gen platform for a Cincinnati television station that enabled advertisers to engage consumers through customizable rich media connected to inventory.

Background

WCPO Channel 9 in Cincinnati has been on the air since 1949 and has a nationally-recognized history of providing first-rate news coverage. It is a part of the E.W. Scripps Company (Scripps), a diversified media company and owner of multiple television stations and newspapers.

Scripps required a new online advertising platform for WCPO and its other properties to add some variety and dynamic content for its demanding advertisers.

The Engagement Challenge

Scripps desired an advertising solution that could promote end-user engagement and result in higher ROI for advertisers.

WCPO was deeply involved with making a high volume of Flash-based creative for multiple clients and wanted a solution that could help properly display that content within interactive banner ads. They also wanted to utilize a database-driven solution that could provide the flexibility needed by the end advertiser.

Innovative Solution

WCPO has used both Bannerlink and Videolink since 2009 to present dynamic and interactive advertisements for Cincinnati-area businesses.

Using the Liquidus solution, WCPO offers its advertisers a lead-generation platform that helps them acquire accurate customer data by encouraging them to share personal data.

Advertisers benefit from the customization options within the Liquidus solutions, which allow creation of unique shopping experiences. This customization promotes awareness of the advertiser’s offerings, allows them to introduce new products in real-time and results in better sales conversion. Advertisers can choose different settings, colors and product display options within each banner.

Consumers enjoy the ability to sort through different product options within the banner, which results in deeper and more sustained interaction and brand awareness. For an automobile ad, consumers are able to dynamically choose vehicle color and other variables while browsing through the banner. They are presented with a full inventory, helping them to quickly decide if they want to move forward to the dealership’s site or to call or email for an in-person visit.

This enhanced consumer interaction and engagement allows advertisers using Bannerlink and Videolink to consistently achieve interaction rates of five times those of traditional rich media. Bannerlink provides WCPO and Scripps with useful metrics beyond just impression and click-through-rate. Expansion and interaction rates, and average video play time are all recorded and available, providing WCPO and the advertiser with more data

The real-time video and image rendering provided by Liquidus means advertisers can offer the most current products and services. This process doesn’t require costly editing, making it extremely cost efficient to promote limited-time sales or remove discontinued inventory.

Immediate Results

WCPO and Scripps have experienced significant advertiser buy-in using Liquidus, with several advertisers in multiple verticals reporting increased ROI and better brand awareness.

One particularly pleased WCPO advertiser was a coin shop operation that desired a better way to advertise its precious coins in a more dynamic fashion. Using Bannerlink and Videolink, WCPO was able to provide the shop with seamlessly flowing images that showcased the breadth of its collection. The database engine allowed real-time changes to images to remove sold items and also to promote interesting new pieces to entice collectors.

For WCPO, the Liquidus solutions give them an added advantage when trying to attract advertisers. The interactive advertisements encourage real interaction with the end customer, who can quickly learn more about products or services without clicking to a new website. These customers are “pre-qualified” through their interaction with the advertisements and are ultimately more likely to make purchases.

“A big part of Liquidus’ competitive advantage is their ability to handle any issues quickly and completely,” said Rob Schuck, sales manager at WCPO. “We also appreciate all of the reporting metrics, which allow us to give our advertisers updated information and make content changes on the fly.”

The 26-page report suggests local mobile marketing spend will double every year for the next five. If so, Borrell estimates that local mobile marketing expenditures will top $18 billion for advertising and $4 billion for promotions, which is more than local businesses currently spend on online advertising.

To order a copy of the report, head to Borrell’s website.

Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) cosponsored the bill in the Sentate while Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Heath Schuler (D-NC) did the same in the House.

“In 2012, states across the country, including Illinois, are expected to lose as much as $24 billion in uncollected state and local taxes on Internet and catalogue sales,” Durbin commented in a statement. “From 2005 to 2010 the state of Illinois estimated it lost $153 million each year. The Main Street Fairness Act doesn’t ask anyone to pay a single penny more in taxes. Instead, it would help governors and mayors collect taxes that are already owed.”

Amazon, which is fighting California legislation and shut down its 10,000 or so affiliates in protest, has commented before they believe the sales tax framework should be built on a federal level. Last week at the company’s second-quarter earnings call, CFO Thomas J. Szkutak said, “We support a federal simplified approach, as we have for more than 10 years.”

Paul Misener, Amazon vice president for global public policy, wrote a letter to Durbin giving Amazon’s support, suggesting that the Supreme Court views Congress as the “appropriate forum to resolve the issue.”

eBay’s Brian Bieron, senior director of federal government relations and global public policy, didn’t mince words: ”A collection of state tax commissioners have again been able to get an outdated Internet sales tax bill introduced in Congress, but we are confident that it will be rejected because it would harm small Internet retailers…. Forcing small businesses to take on the same costs and tax burdens as national retail businesses is unrealistic, unfair and will unbalance the playing field between giant retailers and small business retailers on the Internet,”

eBay instead has put its support behind House Resolution 95 by Reps. Dan Lungren (R-CA) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), which allows Congress to deny states the right to impose “unfair tax collecting requirements on small online businesses.”

Originally a pay-per-call service, Yext introduced local search dashboard PowerListings (known as Tags at launch) last year to much fanfare. The service allows local businesses to control their listings across various local search products (Yelp, Google, CitySearch, etc.,) and maintain a uniform and correct appearance. Also, the platform enables these businesses to offer specials and discounts, as well as send different messages to consumers from platform to platform.

Yext CEO Howard Lerman wrote on the company blog that Yext has signed up 4,000 (paying) clients in the last 100 days. The new funding will be used to further accelerate adoption of PowerListings, making it “an essential system for every business,” he writes.

It’s not that Twitter’s revenue potential doesn’t match the service’s impressive functionality; Twitter simply has been carefully plotting how to best monetize its real-time stream of 185 million daily tweets. Like Facebook, the microblogger has eschewed standard online ad units because of their low engagement rates and general user dislike. And developing new types of advertising units that are organic to its growing platform is not something Twitter feels should be done with haste.

“Revenue has become ‘the meme’ for Twitter,” commented Matt Graves, director of communications. “We’re building a long-term business — we’re not going to rush it.”

With the recent search revamp and the acquisition of Adgrok (maker of in-browser SEM management software), I saw the seeds of a new ad product, but actually they’re signals of a massive expansion of the current ad offerings via a self-serve ad platform that will appear in the second half of 2011.

The just-added relevance filter for search — previously searches were only organized chronologically — is a product of Twitter’s mission shift to “to instantly connect people to information,” Graves said.

In addition, images from Twitter’s new Photobucket-powered image-sharing service are featured in the righthand media pane (which itself was a major feature of last-year’s redesign). Finally, the long-promised link shortener has finally arrived, combining safety (Twitter keeps in the top of the URL so you know you’re headed to YouTube and CNN and not Frank’s Malware Shack) and convenience.

But Twitter’s next big thing is the self-serve ad platform, which has the potential to massively scale the number (which President of Revenue Adam Bain recently marked at 600, 80% repeats) as well as type of advertisers on Twitter. Currently advertising services remain very high-touch, with direct sales teams handling much of the grunt work — the main reason is that Twitter wants to figure out the right way to advertise on its network just as badly as the advertisers.

After a year of experimenting, they’ve learned a lot, and Graves said that the microblogger has developed systems that cede campaign control to advertisers. In addition, Twitter has built five analytics dashboards for advertisers for optimization purposes as well as insights into follower interests.

A self-serve ad platform would definitely attract small and local advertisers, and Graves said Twitter’s ad team has been reaching out to the segment through initiatives such as the “Beta Partnership Plan,”  which requires a (negotiable) $15,000 minimum spend over three months. Despite an Investors.com article with critical anecdotes about Twitter’s effectiveness for SMBs, Graves claimed that SMB experience with Twitter ad products had been predominately positive (he also noted nondisclosure agreements Twitter makes with its advertisers).

“The big thing for SMBs is that inventory is lower than people like,” Graves said. “But we’re still in the extremely early days.”

It’s not hard to imagine inventory increasing with more searches — currently Promoted Tweets only appear in searches; Twitter will eventually roll them out into the timeline and mobile streams — as tweeters embrace the revamped search tool.

Just like SumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery or Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, Promoted Tweets are organic in nature because they would have shown up in a user’s search anyway. Promoted Tweets are just displayed higher because someone put some cash behind them.

And just like those other advertising products, getting the creative right is an art – fortunately Twitter’s resonance algorithm pretty much kicks to the curb nonperforming creative. (Be warned: your Google tricks will not work on Twitter, SEM Jedi.) While Promoted Tweets average 3% to 5% engagement rates, Graves mentioned that the top 50 of these tweets boasted engagement between 21% and 52%.

Sounds like all Promoted Tweets really need is some scale…

As for AdGrok, it was a case of acquihire (even though cofounder and CEO Antonio Garcia-Martinez decided to take a position at Facebook instead) as the GrokBar in-browser SEM tool is headed to the graveyard — but no doubt we will see similar technology appear for Twitter ad products. The rest of the AdGrok team (including cofounders Argyris Zymnis and Matthew McEachen) has taken their places in the revenue engineering division.

Twitter is still growing at a clip, Graves commented — even the Pew Research Center recently upgraded its early 2011 estimate of 8% of U.S. internet users being on Twitter to 13%. Graves said internal analytics put that number higher.

The service comes in a variety of packages, beginning with AdManager Pro’s “Get Started” program that features assistance from an OPEN display specialist. The Premium package adds a dedicated display advisor and bi-weekly status check-ins, while the Elite unit is akin to a full-service campaign manager. AdManager Pro for Marketing Agencies, which integrates into existing systems and client campaigns, assists agencies in measuring specific campaigns.

“AdManager aims to bridge the gap between business owners’ current knowledge of the display advertising space and potential customers that are spending more time online,” commented OPEN vice president Robert Ciccone.

AdReady launched Version 3 of its display platform in September, introducting intelligent campaign association tools for editing and coordinating multiple pieces of creative within an unlimited number of campaigns.

The startup – another Y Combinator-fueled wonder founded in December by Qasar Younis, Michael Ma and Sunny Dhillon — enabled business to immediately and directly respond to consumer feedback (suggestions, questions, yada yada) via a web app.

Word on the street is this is a case of acquihire — according to TechCrunch,”Google will be shutting down TalkBin temporarily, but it plans to reopen the service to new businesses down the line.” Likely it will become a core part of Google’s local and mobile advertising products.

TalkBin’s technology could be a boon to Google’s local business reachout (including the mysterious Offers) by enabling customer engagement at a unmatched personal level. As the battle for the locals heats up, this might give Google an advantage over nemesis Facebook — do you agree?

Maybe it’s good timing or maybe it’s because the business model is fairly simple: a business partners with a daily-deal site to sell a specified product or service at an extremely low cost. The site then offers that deal to consumers to purchase on a chosen day, and the site gets a cut of the revenue that the daily offer brings in. Whatever the reason, daily-deal offers are here to stay.

The Key Players

The leader in this market, by far, is Groupon. Groupon launched in November 2008 and has been labeled the “fastest growing company ever” by Forbes magazine. Even Facebook took longer to attain the rate of growth that Groupon is currently experiencing.

With over 27.5 million subscribers, Groupon now covers over 160 cities in the U.S. as well as many international cities. In 2010, the company experienced phenomenal growth — so big, in fact, that Google attempted to purchase the business for $6 billion, which the company promptly turned down. Although there were, and continue to be, many other daily-deal sites in the space, none seemed to come close to Groupon’s size and reach.

That changed, however, when competitor LivingSocial offered a $10 for $20 Amazon deal earlier this year. LivingSocial gained a great deal of publicity from the offer, and as a result, saw its subscriber base grow substantially. While it still doesn’t match Groupon in terms of usage, competition is definitely heating up.

What’s in It for Local Businesses?

Whether you’re a large brand or an SMB, these daily-deal sites offer a great way to easily acquire new customers that may not have previously heard of your brand. Other benefits include:

• Generate new customers; generate cash flow.
• Gain exposure among new or existing customers.
• Measurable results.

With every positive, though, comes a negative:

• Deep discounts may hurt the business: With these daily-deal sites, businesses are required to offer a significant discount in order for these sites to accept the offer.
• Commission vs. earnings: Sites like Groupon or LivingSocial will take a percentage in commission (usually between 25%-50%), which leaves the business with very little in actual earnings.
• Deal-Seeker Syndrome: It’s inevitable that any business will attract customers that are “deal seekers,” as opposed to potential repeat customers.
• Too much, too soon: Because these sites provide a large amount of new customers in a short period of time, businesses that aren’t properly prepared to handle the swell of new customers will be overwhelmed and negative consequences may follow (ex. lack of customer service, scheduling conflicts, overbooking, etc.).

Groupon or LivingSocial?

On the one hand, Groupon has the upper hand by being the market leader. With its high usage, local businesses are apt to reach a large pool of consumers. The site also reaches a desirable customer base —young, educated, higher income and employed. Furthermore, average Groupon users spend an average of 60% above the value of the Groupon purchased, which helps remedy the low profit possibility.

On the other hand, Groupon has a very narrow vision of what offers may be shown on their site. According to The Wall Street Journal, seven out of eight possible deals suggested by merchants are dismissed by Groupon, which can be frustrating. Finally, a recent study found that the renewal rate for Groupon isn’t very strong, which varies quite a bit from Groupon’s claims. In fact, 40% of respondents said they would not run such a promotion again.

LivingSocial, while similar in concept, has its own set of benefits and drawbacks. Although the site has recently increased its usage, it still only receives about half the amount of visits that Groupon gets. The plus side for local businesses, though, is that LivingSocial takes less in commission than Groupon, typically around 25%-30%. The company also just launched targeted deals to users based on life stages and/or interests. These include Escapes (travel), Family Edition (family activities) and Campus Deals (College-oriented).

The answer to which daily-deal site to go with is unique to each business. Businesses looking for a larger audience and more branding visibility may be more compelled to go with Groupon. Those looking to make the most out of the conversion, however, may be more enticed by LivingSocial.

The options don’t stop there, though. As of today, Groupon and LivingSocial are the two of the most popular options. However, because this business model is so simple, keep an eye out for a growing number of competitors in the space.

Daily deals: Here to Stay

Overall, daily-deal sites can be very useful in a brand’s marketing strategy, but businesses must go into the venture prepared for the outcome. Guidelines for success include:

• Making sure the deal has clear limits on the number that can be purchased by each person, when the deal can be used and, if needed, limiting the number of deals to keep customer service at its best.
• Alerting staff to the details of the offer, so that they can answer questions when the calls come in — as they undoubtedly will.
• Tracking the results of the offer so the overall success can be measured.

Finally, the market will undoubtedly continue to transform. Right now, these platforms only offer one deal per city, but that means that each day, deal-a-day sites only pertain to part of their audience. For example – an offer for five yoga sessions misses the mark with all those not interested in yoga.

In the future, though, it’s plausible that as these platforms expand, more daily-deal sites will turn to even greater means of targeting by lifestyle segments, demographics, or interests (much like LivingSocial). For right now, though, businesses should consider the options available, but also stay on top of how these sites are growing and changing into even-more targeted platforms.

The U.S. government has lent unwavering support, making good on promises of SMB funding and tax cuts by signing the Small Business Jobs Act last September — arguably the most significant piece of small-business legislation in over a decade. And last week, White House officials announced that the Small Business Administration will direct $2 billion over the next five years to match private-sector investment funding for startups.

Many major companies have taken note of the government billions focused on SMBs, and have begun to capitalize on it by putting their own advertising dollars into the SMB marketplace. They have found that by marketing specifically to SMBs, big-name brands can cash in on SMB success.

But determining the best advertising medium to reach the most appropriate SMB customers was for some time a challenge; that is, until social media marketing gained momentum.

Marrying SMB Marketplace and Social Media Networks

While traditional advertising methods using television, radio, magazines and newspapers are still popular, big companies are increasingly turning to social media to reach an untapped cache of customers. In fact, eMarketer estimates that U.S. businesses will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites in 2011 (a 55% increase over 2010) and 10.8% of their expected spend on all online advertising in the United States this year.

Further reinforcing the growth of social media is LinkedIn’s recent S-1 filing, underscoring the general worth of the social media network space. LinkedIn is not alone in its success, either: Yahoo’s valuation weighs in at $21 billion, Facebook has reached $50 billion and Google is at $190 billion.

Given the government’s generosity with SMBs and major companies’ documented interest in using social media as a means to reach new SMB customers through advertising, it makes perfect sense that a social media network dedicated to SMBs would be a popular — and extremely profitable — advertising medium.

Capitalizing on the Opportunity

Heralded by everyone from the President to analysts as a driver of economic recovery, and with billions pumped into it to ensure its stability, the SMB marketplace is surely the Beverly Hills of business sectors. Now, by leveraging new, specialized tools — that is, social media networks — to mine the rich SMB marketplace with specialized advertising, companies will be able to capitalize on the many lucrative opportunities that are awaiting discovery.