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All the buzz about Groupon.com, Living Social.com, and more has created yet another avenue for online marketing. Facebook uses a news feed, Social Deals to send coupons and promote coupon sites, currently serving only Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. Google is turning to email to promote it’s coupon and discount site, Google Offers. Zulily is a niche discount site aimed at mothers with babies and young children. The thing going forward with these sites is that there is so much room in the market, that some of these more niche sites will thrive. Rather than sifting through barbers and eateries as in Groupon, that cater to certain localities (which is great too, just different focus), these sites will cater to a more specific, non-local audience.

One such niche site is Markdown.com, recently launched by Glenn Beck. This site is different in that it will only offer deals from companies with values that are near and dear to Beck’s heart. For example, today’s deal is from Chocolate.com. Chocolate.com offers products not from a mass wholesaler, but rather from small business owners all over the country. Beck’s vision for the site is much like his usual dogma “Value and Values”. He willonly promote sites on his Markdown.com that have the values he thinks are worthwhile. Therefore, he is able to reach a very niche audience who will appreciate his efforts, and will in many cases want to support his causes. In this particular case, it happens to be small chocolatiers from all over the country. Not a bad first choice – everyone loves chocolate, and most people in the country want to do all they can to help bolster small businesses. This site is different, enough so that WebProNews contributor Chris Crum posted the About Us page. I think it’s worth reading, so I would suggest you hope over to read all of it, but I’ll post part of it here just so you can see what I am talking about:

“To put it simply, we believe that we can only be a great company if we are a good one. That means being good to our employees, our partners and our customers. It means making the right decisions, not just the easy or profitable ones. But, most of all, it means being the kind of place that we’re proud to say we work at; the kind of business that we’d want to do business with ourselves; and the kind of company that we’d be excited to send our own family and friends to.”

That’s valuable. I think it’s important to do business this way, and honestly, I will look to support this kind of site more than any other – it’s the way business should be done, and it’s the way we do business here.

Marketing on discount sites such as these will continue to be a trend. Since women are the main shoppers, and so many have started shopping online in the last 10 years or so, they are going to expect coupons and discounts. Whenever we go to buy something online, I know I search for a coupon code or wait for some discount first. The ability to target your audience, through niche or location, or a combination of the two, is going to become more and more important, and a great way to drive traffic to your site.

So, have you used a discount site to market your product or service? How’d you do? Would you do it again?

In the last several years Social media has barged onto the marketing scene in a big way. Some might say it just sneaked up on them when they least expected it – while die hard web users will maintain that it has been a little while in coming. Some platforms have come and gone of course (MySpace, anyone?) – and some have really taken off (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). With this explosion in the use of social media, many search engine specialists have said that “social media is how marketing is done now”. I have to say, I both agree and disagree.

Social Media can be great for your business – great opportunities for marketing. Awesome with local search, etc. But do I think this is now the one and only way to market your business? No way. Do I think that Search Marketing, in a more general sense, that includes social is the one and only way to market your business? No, but it is the best, most cost effective and targeted way to market your business.

Just a couple of the more salient points in the argument – search engine marketing helps people who are actively looking for your product or service to find it – they don’t have to know who you are first. Social media primarily helps spread the word among friends and followers. Someone has to know who you are first, even if you initiate the relationship – it’s not going to go anywhere if no one knows who you are – so search engine marking needs to be the first priority when planning a marketing budget for your web site. This will lay the ground work for any social media and local search. I mean, if you are gonna use local search, you should probably optimize for it, especially if you are offering goods and services that are locally based, as in they can’t be shipped. If you are a dentist or install pools, you’ll want to optimize for your locality as well as the goods and services you are offering. Once you have that all in place, or concurrently, you’ll want to get into social media to “spread the word” – social media really is the new word of mouth advertising – so you should use it to your advantage as much as possible – and track what is being said about you online. People are much faster to complain about a restaurant or other business via Twitter or Facebook, than they are to promote it – so if you want it to be used to your benefit, make sure you are paying attention to what’s being said so you can rectify any complaints or issues ASAP.

This will continue to be an discussion as social media gets bigger and bigger. Social media has absolutely changed the way every size of business markets – of course it did – it’s cheap, it’s relatively easy, and it gets some results. It’s essentially put marketing in the hands of the consumer – which is great – more power to the consumer – but this is also why you really have to pay attention to reputation management – it’s essential to know what people are saying about you – the good and the bad. Social media has made it essential that you be friendly, outstanding, and special, or you are going to be tweeted about. If you are rude – tweet, tweet. If you are ordinary, no tweet. If you go above and beyond, likely tweet. Gotta go for the above and beyond – and really that makes everyone work harder, try to be nicer – win win, right?

There’s a great article over at Mashable with some tips on how Social Media has changed Marketing, as well as some things you can do to get started. The author recommends getting your employees tweeting and using social media to promote your company. This is a great idea – but I’d keep in mind that it is the first place they will turn sour on you if you part ways in an unfriendly manner – just sayin’. We’ve all seen it happen a time or two.

I recently read an article on Fox New’s small business that said the Facebook was like a cocktail party for small business. I have to take issue with this a bit.

We all know that Facebook can be leveraged for marketing purposes, but not all small businesses are going to get the greatest benefit from it. Take for example, the wedding photographer featured in the article. She states that for her:
“Facebook is huge for networking. As far as marketing goes, it’s the best tool,” said Guenin, 32, who promotes weddings and other events she has photographed on the fast-growing social media site. “

I can see why Facebook would be a great fit for her. Her business is highly social. She friends her clients when she accepts a project. She can upload pictures from her weddings and other events, allowing her clients to share them, all marked of course, with her logo. Free advertising. People like what they see, especially if she uploads the best or most interesting shots, gets lots of comments on them, and remember that when they need a photographer for their own events. It’s a great setup, especially with such ease of use and low or not cost. The only cost would come from the time involved in updating her profile, if she did not maintain it herself.

But, all small businesses are not so socially oriented. I don’t see this working quite so well for a dentist or a metal fabricating company. I mean, you can’t really post about the great root canal you just gave, or the awesome filling you just did. You might be able to get away with some shots of tooth whitening, but, really, who wants to shop for a dentist on Facebook? A metal fabricating company might have the same experience. Your friends and family aren’t going to “share” your pics of guys welding in helmets, or the finished product. Friending clients on Facebook might come off as strange. It’s not a natural fit, by any means.

In the end, there are Web marketing solutions to fit every small business. Some will do well with social media, while others might need to concentrate more on their email campaigns, SEO, and some local search – that dentist will want to spend more time on local search than Facebook. It’s just a better fit. It just makes sense.

A few years back the coolest thing about the Web was that anyone, anywhere could purchase products from anyplace in the world, and have that product in a few short days. SEO was all about making sure that those customers found what you had to offer, no matter where in the world they were. It was very cool (still is very cool), very fresh. Ebay was king! Now, the coolest thing about the Web is that you can Google for the closest ice cream shop open past midnight on a Tuesday and get directions to take you right to the doorstep. Now the shop around the corner, where you can have “it” now! is king. Local Search is here folks, and it’s not going anyway anytime soon – awesome!

If you read this blog, or any other on search engine marketing, you know that local search is big. Local search has been talked about for a long time, and even implemented to a certain extent, but recent improvements in mobile technology have really made it relevant. So many different aspects of mobile web and regular usage of the web are driving this trend. Google Maps and Places, Facebook Places, mobile networks, just to take off the tip of the ice burg. Because of this, the already very important aspects of local search have come to light in a way that has most people in the search industry standing up and paying attention. Google and Bing have both included location into their rankings algorithms.

I know that I usually shoot down whatever people are saying is the next big thing in search, but not when it is just common sense. (Which is really all SEO and SEM really are.) It just makes sense that search would turn local. Anytime you search for anything you need locally, a doctor, dentist, garbage company, tree trimmer or Chinese take-out, the locality is of utmost importance. Therefore, anything YOU sell, make or do for your area must be represented on your site as a local product or service. These things need to be optimized with your locality. You need to be using all the tools in your arsenal to make sure your business is easily located and your customers know what you have available. Social media, mobile networks, downloadable discounts, all these things play into how your customers find you, buy what you have or do, and how you will be ranked or reviewed, and believe me, you will be, especially if the customer is not satisfied. Never before in history has the slogan “the customer is always right” been so relevant. If they are not happy, they will take to Twitter, Facebook, and the like and tell all their friends and followers about their experience. Unfortunately, you probably have to go above and beyond to get a whole lot out of people on the positive end without pursuing a “like” or review yourself.

In the end of all of this, this new and exciting world is getting smaller by the day. Localized search is making it possible for someone to find you, Google you for directions and arrive at your place of business in a matter of minutes. If you want to be the business they find, you had better make sure you have all of your marketing ducks in a row. Shoot us an email if you need a hand with that, we’d be happy to help you out.

For those of you who just have to know more:
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/10/21/using-social-and-local-search-for-your-business
http://searchenginewatch.com/3641506