Do you blog? If you don’t, you could be missing out on a great business (marketing) opportunity. This is especially true if you run a service business.

Blogging isn’t used as an online journal of life events anymore. If people ask me “Do I need a website?” The first thing I ask is, “What do you do for a living?”

If they tell me that they run some sort of service business like a doctor, lawyer, contractor, carpet cleaner, or even a retired mom who makes beautiful bead necklaces, then I say…”Forget a run of the mill website, you need to start a blog.”

Why?

1. Blogs are easy to set up
2. It’s FREE in most cases
3. Adding your own writing and pictures is soooooo simple

Service businesses are made for blogs. You constantly have new projects and/or clients with problems you helped solve. Why not tell other people what you did to make your client’s life better?

Great Blog Example

The professional photographer that we used to take three-month-old photos of my son had the right idea. Emanuel takes two to ten of his favorite shots and posts them with comments. This not only shows off his best work, but also gets you… Read the rest of this entry »

I was going through some of my blog feeds and found a link to an older post found on Blog written by professional Web Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultant/guru. Her name is Rae Hoffman and she has been doing Web related projects for almost a decade now. Her blog posts are witty, extremely knowledgeable, and I can also appreciate the fact that they are from a woman’s perspective.

Here is a link to her advice on what to do when you are ready to put up a website for your local business. She has the normal website setup advice, but I found the list of Online Promotion of you new website links to be excellent.

Her advice is gold. Use it and prosper (online)!

If you’ve ever read the books Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin you’d get a couple great marketing ideas that can get your business some incredible attention.

He lists one that I thought was just ingenious. A local lawn mowing crew had brightly colored Frisbees custom printed with their logo and business info enticing people to use their services. As they drove by a lawn that they didn’t currently service they would throw a Frisbee in the yard.

I really like this because they are giving you something fun instead of sending you another piece of pointless junk mail. Even if you don’t use them to mow your lawn, you still have a new toy for your dog or kids. It’s a win-win situation.

While looking over my daily blogs, I found this idea for personal trainer’s business card.

http://streetlessons.com/446-the-ultimate-business-card-series.html

How great is that!

Many times having a sense of humor is all we need to get people talking about us. I found this today on one of the many blogs I read and had to share it. I always find it amazing how a little creativity can go a long way when making an effort to get more customers to walk in the door.

Ben’s post is sage marketing advice. I’m not sure if his photo says 1000 words, but it certainly tells a great joke. Check it out on Church of the Customer blog (from the authors of Citizen Marketers)

I hear this question a lot when people find out I manage a website. I now say…

Not so much any more. Here’s why…

Google, Yahoo, EBay, YouTube, MSN and several other popular web services are jumping on the geo-targeting bandwagon. This means that now is the best time to be a small business and to get started using the web to market your business. Why?

One piece of data gathered by many websites is your Internet address. This address, also called the IP address, is the number issued to your computer by the server owned by the company who provides your dial-up or high-speed Internet connection.

Once the site knows your IP address they have a general idea of your geographic location. Most of the larger web services (like those listed above) have set up their systems to provide you with content that is more “localized” to your region. So in most cases, search engines will transparently serve more links for websites to businesses and organizations that are in your local geographic location.

This means that if you are smart you will make sure that first you have a website. And second, that every website and blog that you have includes your name, business name, physical address, and phone number. Not sure where to start, you don’t have to spend a lot of money or effort? Check out what one marketing guru and popular author recommends here - Seth Godin

Just one other thing…

The iPhone is also launching June 29th of this month so there is yet another opportunity there. Scroll to the bottom of my January 19th 2007 Newsletter for why the iPhone (and all future phones that copy it) will be important to your local business.

In the last post I talked about using Google Alerts to notify you if someone mentioned your name, business, or specific product. What if you want to spy on the thoughts of other people talking about more broad topics related to what you sell or personal interests?

Try Google Reader.

I use it all the time to read about people’s thoughts and experiences while in waiting rooms. You’d be surprised how many people blog about the discomfort they feel when waiting to see their doctor. Anyhow, I have found Google Reader to be an excellent automated tool that will seek out blog posts with the general terms and words that I specify.

In order to use Google reader, you must sign up for the service (it’s FREE). If you already have a Gmail email address account then it will be added to your other account services. Once your subscription begins, you can enter a term or phrase you want Google to search for in blogs and news feeds. To do this, use the Add Subscription button (on the left). Each “feed” will be listed as a link below, and will also show up every time you start Google Reader.

Google Reader has two presentation modes and can be changed with the two blue tabs on the top right of the interface. I keep my Reader settings in the Expanded view mode since I like to get a brief snippet of what is in the post/article. This is unlike the List view mode where it only shows the Headline.

So what is the difference between Google Reader and Google Alerts? Not much really, but I believe it’s more how you use them. I use Alerts for very specific terms like my name and the division of the business where I work. I also use Alerts for more specific terms because I pay more attention to my email inbox than I do any other application on the computer. In specific term cases, response speed is a factor. I use Reader to corral posts on more general terms because I don’t want to clutter my email inbox with alerts every time someone types the individual phrases/words “waiting room” or “magazine.”

Give it a try! I think you will be pleasantly surprised how much insight you get when you can quickly review the personal thoughts of others all over the world. You may even find some blogs so entertaining that you’ll want to keep reading week after week by adding their RSS feed to your iGoogle account. Reader can also be a helpful resource when you need ideas and/or topics to talk about on your own blog.

As promised, I mentioned in my last post that I would tell you how to use the Internet to see if people were talking about you. If you own a business, this is a great tool to use because you can ask the Search Engines to notify you when someone mentions your name or business name.

I personally use Google’s Alert tool because Google is constantly reviewing the Internet for new information every hour of the day. It is extremely simple to set up a Google Alert, just go to the following link: http://www.google.com/alerts

In the Search terms enter either your name or business name…be sure to put quotes around your name like “Shawn Pearson” or “Dr. Pearson” so that you only receive emails where your full name is mentioned. Otherwise you will receive an email alert every time someone mentions Shawn or Pearson.

Use the “Type” dropdown list to choose how deep a search you want Google to perform to find your search term. I just use Comprehensive, but you can have other settings including just Blogs, News or discussion Groups.

The “How often” dropdown feature is neat because it will tell you once a day, once a week, or as soon as it finds the reference. If you or your product is high profile and you may be worried about bloggers talking negatively about you, chose “as-it-happens” in this field. This will give you an opportunity to respond in their blog comments to defend your turf. I highly recommend this to any business that wants to protect their brand. You’d be surprised at how many businesses don’t do this.

Finally you set the email address to the one you want to send the Alert to…if you have a gmail account, all your Alerts can be managed in one area. If you don’t have or want a gmail account then you will have to manage the alerts by clicking on either the Verify or Cancel links in the initial confirmation email you receive from Google.

You can do a Google Alert for much more than just your name, it could be for specific product you sell, a favorite celebrity, a family member, or whatever you can think that you might want to track. Just make sure you keep the search tight by adding quotes around the search item or else you’ll find yourself getting a ton of email; especially if you set the search for something that is common and choose as-it-happens under How Often.

For more common terms you’ll want to consider using the Google Reader feature, see my next post for more details.

Update 5-5-2007 — Wow, I couldn’t have said this better myself…HD-DVD Rebillion — End Update

How frustrating…big companies and trade organizations are having so much trouble understanding the new marketing paradigm that the Internet has developed. In my opinion, they need to request that their law firms show some restraint before sending out these crazy cease and desist letters to small businesses who ride the wave of something popular.

Case and point, Apple – Apple Attack Dogs. This just doesn’t make sense to me…why would you do this if you have such a religious following of customers? Why not twist this to your advantage and make it into a positive and profitable event that could potentially expand into a national pastime.

Apple makes money off of both IPods and ITunes. Why not send a marketing representative to one of these shindigs and give away 4-5 Ipod Nanos essentially multiplying your users and in the long run, increased ITunes purchases? We’ve all heard about “compounding interest,” but have you ever considered “compounding customers?” Duh!

Embracing this customer’s enthusiasm could establish these parties as cool, fun, and viral Meccas of opportunity to win something useful. Not to mention the great potential a positive press release covering this trend would generate. Done right, these parties could potentially cause a new sensation of IPod product worship across the country. That kind of trend would be a thousand times more effective and a thousand times cheaper than a one shot Super Bowl commercial.

If you were to ask me this is just plain irresponsible – the marketing team has an incredible opportunity here and the lawyers are setting the stage for a barrage of bad press throughout the blogesphere. Do you know who reads blogs the most? Journalists do, especially those writers for local and national newspapers, magazines, radio, and news television…so keep that in the back of your head before you offend a customer/citizen advocate who may write a popular blog. You never know how much influence they have to infect others with negative views about your business, products, service, or brand!

Just remember, with search engines running the show, it takes a long time for the Internet to forget bad press…

So what are the morals of this story?

When something looks like it may be a trademark infringement because someone else is using your marketing idea or brand to push an event, I suggest that your law firm show some restraint and contact the marketing departments of the company they represent. If the marketing arm cannot find a positive way to spin something or work out a co-marketing opportunity, then send your letter.

I would be more apt to keep (and pay more to) my attorney if he/she helped me make a ton more money. Rather than have me spend money on initiating low priority lawsuits each year so that they can appear they are using their monthly stipend wisely.

If you want to learn more about customer evangelism – buy the following book; I guarantee that it will help open your eyes to monetary opportunities that were not available to you in the past no matter how big or small you are…

Citizen Marketers – by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba