Find more about me on:

Here are my most recent posts

All posts by Peter Marino

Look and Feel Like a Big Business in Your Home-Based Web Company

November 21, 2013Business Tech, Small Business Marketingact like a big business, be small act big, home based business, web companyPeter Marino

There are more than 22 million small businesses operating in the U.S. with no employees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. When customers do business with a Web-based business, they really have no idea how how big that business is. If you’re running a one-man operation but want to look like an ecommerce big shot, follow the tips below.

People Do Judge a Book by Its Cover

The appearance of your brand is the first impression people have of your company. Make sure your website, logo and business cards look consistent and polished. Don’t skimp when developing these public-facing items—hire a professional, high-quality Web designer, graphic designer and business card printer. Nothing says “amateur” more than a DIY site or business card.

While you’re at it, get a business domain for your site. It’s tempting to cut costs and go with a free hosting service, but www.mybusiness.wordpress.com doesn’t have the same impact as www.mybusiness.com.

When you get your own domain, create specific email addresses for your company. Create an email address for yourself, such as frank@mybusiness.com, but also create a couple of generic email accounts, such as info@mybusiness.com or support@mybusiness.com. Use these accounts when registering on other sites or when replying to customers. Directing people to your info or support email accounts when they are on your website makes it appear you have staff to take care of those requests, even if it’s just you reading the emails. Don’t use Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or AOL mail accounts—they are a dead giveaway. Your email may even get flagged as spam, so your customers won’t even see them.

Make Your Business Accessible

In a 2012 survey, the digital media and commerce analysts SMB DigitalScape found that 60 percent of small businesses did not have a contact phone number listed on their website. Make your business accessible by providing several points of contact. Phone and email are preferred, but contact forms and a comment system are other options. Don’t make people search through your site for this information. Make it easy to find on a contact page.

Answer or return calls and emails promptly. You are creating a connection with the customer when you respond to them. They will remember how promptly you responded and what kind of help you gave them.

Act Like a Big Business

Part of looking like a big business to a customer is your attitude and the confidence you display. Start with how you dress for your workday. Even if you work out of a home office, dress up. Wearing the same T-shirt and blue jeans you lounge around the house in doesn’t create the mindset of a professional business person.

If you don’t meet customers face-to-face, consider a virtual office or mail forwarding service. This gives your business a “respectable” address that doesn’t look like a residential street address or a P.O. Box. This is an inexpensive way to give your company that big-business image.

How To Succeed With Paid Advertising Through Facebook

November 20, 2013Facebook Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media MarketingFacebook advertising, facebook marketing, How To Succeed With Paid Advertising Through Facebook, Paid advertising on FacebookPeter Marino

As Facebook continues to expand both its commercial services and its global influence, it becomes an ever more powerful resource for businesses. Yet because paid advertising through social media is a relatively new marketing outlet, many companies are still struggling to craft effective campaigns that make the most of its vast potential. There are countless nuances and considerations to take into account when forming a strategy, and businesses that overlook important factors ultimately squander their resources. So to help you get the most out of Facebook’s marketing services, here’s how to succeed with paid advertising on social media.

Clarify Your Goals

Before launching your campaign, start by setting clear goals. Are you trying to drive traffic to a company site? Are you promoting a company event on your fan page? Or do you want to boost exposure for exciting new content your business recently released? The more specific your plan, the better. Just keep in mind that your advertisement is ultimately little more than a link. So give careful consideration to the best place to direct consumers, and focus on providing a clear call to action.

Choose the Right Ad

The two main types of Facebook advertising are traditional ads and Sponsored Stories. The ads show up in the right-hand column of users’ pages. The stories, however, are a recent innovation in Facebook’s advertising platform. They highlight Fan Page activity by providing newsfeed updates to your friends each time someone comments or likes your post. As a less obvious and more active type of marketing, Sponsored Stories are incredibly effective for those who have healthy conversations and a high engagement level with their friend community.

Thoughtful Targeting

The biggest strength of Facebook marketing is its ability to reach targeted audiences. Each ad on the social site is targeted based upon location, demographics, likes, and interests. So before you launch the campaign, spend time conducting consumer research and narrowing down your ideal audience. The more effectively you are able to target, the more results your ads will ultimately generate.

Diversification

The most effective Facebook ad campaigns are diverse. So rather than sending out a single ad at a time, send out a group of them. Closely monitor the results you get from each using Facebook’s metrics and Google Analytics, and build upon the successes while learning from the failures. A long-term marketing investment will allow you to improve your campaign with each post.

Aesthetics

It is also important to understand that aesthetics have a tremendous impact on the success of Facebook ads. So remember to utilize visuals as much as possible, and communicate the style and quality you want users to associate with your brand. A sloppy ad is a poor reflection on your company image, and can even hurt your business. So make your ad beautiful, stylish, and evocative. When your marketing stands out as unique, it inspires more engagement from the community and communicates a wealth of information about your brand. Something as simple as a single image can register in the memory of consumers, and forever become associated in their minds with your company. So never underestimate aesthetics.

It is estimated that Facebook’s advertising revenue will increase 31% in 2013, and that about 64% of advertisers will increase spending on their social marketing campaigns in the coming year. So as this unique marketing platform continues to expand and evolve, it pays to get a leg up on the competition by investing time and attention in your social campaigns. The faster you learn to harness the potential of social marketing platforms, the faster your company will be able to grow.

Out guest blogger, Kirsten, works for vouchercloud within the social media marketing team. She is responsible for launching new voucher deals and marketing them through Vouchercloud’s social media networks.

Why the Future of Marketing Is All About Helping

November 19, 2013Blogging, Help marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video marketing, Viral marketing, YouTube MarketingHow giving away your service works, what is help marketing?, Why does helping your customer work?Peter Marino

The future of marketing is helping. Helping will bring you new customers, and forge trust in you and your brand for future customers. Jay Baer explains how and why the help marketing concept works here:

Transcript:

0:01 I’m going to try and make this
0:10 is entertaining as possible to start a full video watch this for me
0:16 in the right and yet he’s up
0:19 today we’re gonna show you how to remove viruses and spyware
0:22 your computer all home
0:27 the best way to remove viruses and spyware Caldwell where
0:30 video is awesome and you can see if amis it’s a guy
0:35 talking about mall so Geek Squad in addition to that sort of weird video
0:41 about viruses and spyware has YouTube channel the couple have 100
0:46 other videos on it all can you how to install Windows 8 not kinda crazy stuff
0:51 and I was at a conference
0:52 a few years ago and Robert Stevens who is the founder and Geek Squad was the
0:57 keynote and some in the audience
0:59ask him a question he was talking about the series videos
1:02 it’s Robert now let me see if I can get this straight
1:05 Geek Squad is in the business
1:09 fixing stuff for money it’s a kid that’s
1:14 that’s more or less what we do physical but you’ve got all these videos that
1:19 show people how to fix stuff themselves
1:22 how does that make any business sense at all in Stephen civil
1:27 you know first of all you gotta understand our best customers are the
1:32 people who think
1:33 they can fix it themselves
1:36 which is absolutely true right that is me I am I K
1:41 hot water heater repair in like four thousand dollars into trip to the
1:44 emergency room later we’re good to go
1:45 told effect and he said second of all eventually
1:49 everybody gets out of their depth right eventually you can’t do it yourself and
1:53 at that point who are you gonna call
1:55 but even a randomly dialed up the yellow pages or are you going to call Geek
1:59 Squad
1:59whose videos you’ve been looking at for 46
2:038 10 12 minutes because robert stevens a Geek Squad
2:09 understand a very important business principle
2:13 which is that the difference between helping
2:17 and Celine is just two letters
2:21 but those two letters make all
2:24 the difference in modern business
2:28 because if you sell something
2:32 you can create a customer today but if you help someone
2:37 you can create a customer
2:41 for life now so we’re going to talk about this evening
2:47 we are at a conference we’re talking a lot
2:50 about content and content creation and marketing automation
2:55 in feeding information to customers but the reality is
3:00 the content that will be effective is content that is truly
3:05 and inherently useful and I call that information
3:10 a utility yooo utility
3:14 and the definition of utility is simple it’s just this its market team that is
3:19 so useful
3:20 people would pay for it
3:24 now you’re not going to actually make them pay for that would be bold
3:28 but it’s so useful that if you ask them to you they actually work
3:33 me give you an example Hilton Hotels has a program
3:39 on Twitter called act Hilton suggests
3:43 they started as a couple years ago as a trial program they
3:47 they took 25 hotels across the United States took a volunteer from each ot
3:51 else was on a full-time job it was in addition to the regular duties
3:54 is that who’s we want you to do we want to listen on Twitter
3:57 pay attention to what’s been said on Twitter and if you can find a way to
4:01 help
4:02 just help so that’s what they did
4:07 here’s an example at Lt Houston
4:12 says on Twitter good places to eat your the Magnolia Hotel
4:17 downtown Dallas on Saturday Hilton suggest
4:21 jumps into this conversation note that this was an address templeton
4:25 they just thought they were strategically eavesdropping
4:28 if you will they saw this they leaped into the conversation said hey at LT
4:32 Houston
4:33 wild salsa on major camp easy’s on elmer awesome
4:36 both within walking distance of your hotel in Dallas enjoy
4:42 but here’s the fat the Magnolia Hotel
4:47 is not a Hilton property so now you have Hilton Hotels using staff time and staff
4:53 resources
4:54 to assist somebody that they know for a fact is not
4:57 a customer but eventually this guy’s gonna be in a different city and your
5:02 hotel recommendation
5:03 and at that point who’s it gonna think I’m first
5:06 Hilton because they helped him when
5:10 he needed it it’s a utility
5:15 a couple days later Melanie J who was at Rockstar
5:18 extreme on Twitter tweeted out
5:21 anybody know who’s hiring in Orlando for professional positions at this time
5:25 seems like it’s at a standstill
5:29 Hilton suggest jumps into that and says at Rockstar extreme check out Orlando
5:33 jobs dot com for a comprehensive list now
5:36 no I think what I would have said is Haley Melanie maybe if your Twitter
5:39 handle wasn’t at Rockstar extreme
5:42 you would have some additional interviewed maybe this is sending the
5:45 wrong message
5:48 it’s just one of many reasons I’m not in customer service
5:51 but now they’re trying to help her find a job and eventually maybe she’s gonna
5:55 get a job and he’s gonna have disposable income
5:57 and she’s going to want to travel and he’s going to need a hotel and at that
6:00 point
6:01 who is she gonna pinko first
6:04 Hilton because they helped her when she needed help.

Prevent Cyber Attacks that Can Grind Your Business to a Halt

November 18, 2013Security, Technologycyber attacks, Prevent Cyber Attacks, small business and cyber attacksPeter Marino

The risk of a cyber attack on a business represents one of the greatest security threats an organization might face. The National Small Business Association released a study suggesting that the average impact of a cyber attack on a small business amounts to almost $9,000, with nearly half of all businesses reporting they have been on the end of a hacking attempt or cyber attack. The good news is that a business can minimize its risk by putting several safeguards in place.

Know Your Digital Providers

Unless your company specializes in generating Internet servers for other people, you likely have little input in the creation of your digital platforms. Your company is at the most risk from the very digital platforms that allow you to make sales and connect with customers. Vikas Bhatia, founder of Kalki Consulting, recommended in an interview with Forbes magazine that companies ask their digital providers questions about what level of safeguards are in place. For a basic company page that runs on a platform like WordPress, there may be nothing at all protecting your sensitive information from a malware or Trojan attack.

Backup Plans

Having a Plan B in the business world lets you safeguard against risk. What happens, however, when both your Plan A and Plan B are on the same hardware? Cyber attacks do not necessarily happen from hundreds or thousands of miles away. An Asis Foundation study on computer theft estimates that the loss of proprietary data on a lost or stolen computer can cost a business nearly $700,000 per incident. This massive damage can be mitigated with extensive backup plans for all company documents. Never let an employee create any business document without backing it up on a cloud connection or an external piece of hardware.

Get Proactive Protection

Having an expert on your side when it comes to cyber attacks, hacking, phishing and identity theft can be a strong line of defense. Get information regarding identity theft protection from an identity monitoring firm that offers assistance with the threat of cyber attacks. Professional advice helps you take preventive measures that are proven to work, while identity theft protection services like LifeLock put safeguards in place against the creation of fraudulent credit cards or the unauthorized use of bank funds. These proactive service measures can stop ID theft before it happens, rather than having to clean up the damage after the fact.

Password Protection

Though many businesses are hardwired to change their passwords often, a steady schedule of changing passwords plays into the hands of hackers. Naked Security notes that a hacker or digital attack can capitalize on an expected password change, whether it is on the first day of the month or the end of a quarter. Instead of offering predictable changes, make password changes random—such as picking an employee’s birthday every three or four months, or a week prior to less popular holidays like Columbus Day.