SEO is more than just technology and search engines, it is still about people and what drives them to buy. SEO copy should be written with specific keywords true, but it also needs to be focused on the audience, not just the speaker. Only worrying about your Google CTR, CPC and ranking, or if it’s “Likeable” on Facebook will not help you to reach your customers, or increase your conversion and sales.  Set SMART goals; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. It’s easy to get lost in the technology of marketing.  Remembering that you are trying to influence a person to buy your product or service, not a computer can help you to realign your goals and strategy.

If you view your website like a valued salesperson and company representative, you may better understand how your customer sees you.

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic consulting for pivotal insights in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of information and intelligence for our customers. Contact Chief Internet Marketer for a customized SEO marketing strategy  that will drive your business forward.

It’s relative today to think about what the colors you choose say about your business. So do colors really help consumers remember a business? The resounding answer is yes! Color is the first thing a person connects with. In fact some research and studies conducted have reported that over 90% of the respondents questioned said that they put the most importance on visual factors when purchasing products. When asked to approximate the importance of color when buying products, over 80% thought that color accounted for a customers purchasing decision.

Research also shows that color increases brand recognition by 80%; improves readership as much as 40%; and increases comprehension by 73%. Color ads are read up to 42% more than similar ads in black and white and color can be up to 85% of the reason that people decide to buy.

Research has also found that different colors provoke very different reactions in people. Integrating your brand colors in your logo, landing pages, product, and more will help you achieve the highest impact.

But how can the most popular colors help you connect with your consumers?  Well, while it may cost you nothing to choose a color for your company, it could however end up costing you immensely if you choose wrong.

So which colors are companies using the most?  29% use red- 33% use blue 28% use black or grey and 13% use yellow or gold.  Colors are generally viewed in two categories; warm is associated with energy and cold is associated with calmness and security. Research results concluded the following:

Red

• Popular for food, technology, cars and agriculture
• Unpopular for energy, finance, airlines and clothing

Blue

• Popular for energy, finance, airlines, technology, healthcare and agriculture
• Unpopular for clothing, food and cars

Black

• Popular for clothing, technology and cars
• Unpopular for energy, finance, airline, healthcare and food

Yellow

• Popular for energy, food and household
• Unpopular for finance, airline, clothing, cars and technology

This research may help guide you whether you are just starting out, or you are updating an existing brand, but either way, the color you choose to represent your brand should more important than just a quick thought. You should engage an experienced marketing consultant firm with creative design experts to help you integrate your brand colors throughout, your logo, landing page and product.

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit www.chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized social marketing strategy  that will drive your business forward.

Let’s put things into perspective: How do you retrieve your content when you’re on the go? Whether it’s through a specific app, or your mobile web browser, you too have migrated away from the days of desk-only browsing at the home or office.

For marketers and businesses planning to introduce a new online presence in 2013, building “Apps” may sound like the right solution …. After all, doesn’t everybody carry a smartphone these days?!

But with literally hundreds of mobile brands and thousands of models out there, how can you afford to create an “App” that pleases each and every one of your customers, or more importantly – each and every one of your prospective customers?

The Answer is Responsive Web Design (RWD).

Responsive Web Design is a strategic approach to web design that is geared toward delivering an optimal viewing experience. “Optimal?” This means easy to read, easy to navigate, little need to zoom in and zoom out, minimal scrolling, etc. Everything your site visitor needs to access should be right in front of them, and seamlessly displayed on screen, whether that screen is a 19” desktop monitor, or a 2.5” mobile screen.

Let’s Get Technical.

Responsive Web Design doesn’t involve creating hundreds of separate (and costly) websites as creating separate Apps would entail.  It involves creating ONE adaptive layout, which is capable of identifying the user’s platform and then triggering the so-called “mind” of your site to deliver the appropriate page layout. Page layouts are typically available for various screen sizes – desktops, tablets (such as the iPad or Nook) and mobile screens.

RWD is not just for the homepage either; Responsive Web Design is carried throughout the entire site, so that the second your user clicks on a product or service, the sub-pages also adhere to their specific screen size.

Say goodbye to that tiny magnifying glass on your smartphone’s screen. Say goodbye to “12x magnification” whenever you want to access your site’s primary navigation.  Say goodbye to zoom in…zoom out… zoom in… zoom out.

Welcome to our new and responsive era.

Like What You Hear?

With today’s diversity and ever-changing complexity of online marketing, business leaders often struggle to bring their brands to the surface. Take advantage of CIM’s proven results in the digital sector. Contact us by phone, email or by filling out this form. and we’ll provide you with a complimentary consultation to get started today. Click here to read up on our core services including Responsive Design and Mobile Marketing.

When thinking of B2B, the first questions that comes to mind are how big or small is the business that I am selling to, and who does what? Meaning what role does each stakeholder have in that company and who makes decisions? So, let’s break it down further and look at the specific questions to ask when targeting B2B prospects.

What do I know about the company that I am targeting?

• What is their annual revenue?
• How many employees do they have?
• How many offices do they have and where are they?
• How long have they been in business?
• What are their different product lines?
• How much are they selling their products for?

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized B2B social marketing strategy that will drive your business forward.

Though the press release states that the app allows advertisers the ability to provide targeted offers to users, only geo-targeting is available at the moment. Parkinson says there are plans to begin further targeting soon. According to Parkinson, the biggest challenge was finding a way to integrate with Facebook effectively, “With Facebook’s Open Graph, Timeline and other aspects, we had to make sure that the features were done correctly.”

Valassis is currently working on a version for mobile and tablet, Parkinson adds. “Once the app has had time in the market, we can focus on other features.” RedPlum Social Savings, launched as a part of Valassis’s “Reimagining Reach” publicity campaign, gives users the opportunity to download, share, and print coupon offers from brands, according to a company release. The coupons offered are grocery-related and according to a recent survey, Valassis expects social marketing to be a major component for grocery retailers in the near future.

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized social marketing strategy that will drive your business forward.

Google Product Search officially became Google Shopping—the mother of all comparison shopping engines—at the beginning of October. And Google’s recent reformat of the search results page now dedicates nearly half the page to Google Shopping results, if the search is on a product-related term (i.e. winter boots).

And while this is may be great for consumers, it poses some challenges for businesses. Companies selling online now need to dedicate a budget to gaining product visibility in Google Shopping. And merchants who never listed their products need to get set up to gain this visibility.

All of this is part making sure you are where the online shoppers are. Shopping, never a tidy process to begin with, has become like a crazy roadmap with consumers accessing many points of info to research, consider and execute a purchase. The challenge for today’s retailer is to be where you need to be to insure consumers can find the information on your products, when they need it and how they want it.

For help with Google visibility for your products and services you can trust the Authority Marketing experts at Chief Internet Marketer. Contact us today to learn more and explore your options.

Nearly half of the Google search results page is now dedicated to Google Shopping results:

By appending email addresses to your customer database, you can expand your marketing options and receive tremendous customer communication benefits. Email campaigns have become a critical channel in today’s marketplace and a very cost effective way to communicate on a more personal casual level with your customers. Email appending help businesses to enhance their databases by providing missing emails which helps companies to maximize the value of their offline in-house databases.

Benefits to Appending Email Addresses to your Customer File

• Provides a new channel and level of communication with your customers
• You can expand your marketing options and frequency
• A cost effective way to recapture inactive customers
• Support your direct mail initiatives and increase response rates
• Appeal to customer communication preferences
• Notify customers of ongoing offers and specials
• Save postage and increase data accuracy
• Convert customers from paper billing to online billing

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized social marketing strategy  that will drive your business forward.

Profiling your customers in essence refers to identifying the characteristics that differentiate your customers from people who are unlikely to ever buy your product or have need of your service. It goes deeper though to differentiate your best and most loyal customers, those that buy more frequently have a higher value from the rest. Not all customers are ideal some will purchase infrequently, won’t spend a great deal of money or will have little loyalty, yet will take a lot of your selling time. Knowing who to target is essential.

One approach to profiling is to first segment or group customers by their value to your business, then use critical data, census, lifestyle, market, business/consumer, and geo-demographics to expand segmentation and customer understanding. To do this we first statistically analyze customer trading data to determine how much people spend, how often they buy, what they buy, where they live, their life stage, what attracted them to your company, etc., then compute a score to identify your ideal customer.

Using the ZIP code, we add external profile data which allows us to accurately describe what your best customers look like. Then, using geographic analysis techniques, we can position your existing customers on a map to identify where geographically to find more of the same ideal customer.

If you are planning a product launch or thinking of expanding into a new geographic area, by applying some mathematics you can take into account of known competition and the brand life stage, we can estimate what a specific geographic area may deliver in terms of sales potential.

Territories created in this way will deliver economic benefits, and prevent territory cross sales. If you operate a location based business model, then choosing the right site to open your outlet has as much to do with the demographic profile of your customers as it does the physical location of the store.

With accurate customer profiles and people or businesses grouped by segment, the right analytical resource, tools and data including competitor locations, traffic patterns, parking, high target market density you will be able to determine how many stores you can open in an existing market, where you should expand your network, and which stores should be closed or consolidated.

You will also be able to select the business locations that are profitable and contribute strongly to your overall network. Perhaps most importantly, customer profiles enable you to target the right people using the right media and channels to get across your marketing and sales messages in an effective way at a minimal cost.

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized social marketing strategy that will drive your business forward.

In fact, more and more brands are staking their claims on Google‘s social network, signaling that Google+ is becoming a social marketing staple along with Facebook and Twitter. The latest readings come from BrightEdge, a search engine optimization firm for large brands. According to the company’s new SocialShare Report, three-quarters of the top 100 brands now have Google+ pages, including new arrivals Visa, Hermes, and Wells Fargo. That’s approaching the brand participation on Facebook, at 90%, and Twitter, at 80%. The number of people following the top 100 brands grew 54%, which was reported as recently reaching 12.2 million on Forbes.com

But the fact remains that there are still far less followers of most of the top brands on Google+ vs. Facebook and Twitter. H&M, for instance, leads Google+ brand with 1.3 million followers, but that’s tiny compared with its 11.6 million fans on Facebook. In comparison, Facebook has 481 million fans of the top 100 brands.

So is this a reason not to jump on board with Google+? Actually no, because most brands are now on Google+ even though their fans aren’t yet, and a k key reason is that merely being there appears to help brands show up more prominently in search results. BrightEdge says 30% of brands with Google+ pages show up on search results when people type in their brand name, so it’s obviously clear that brand managers feel they must have a presence on Google+ if they want to show up more often in search results.

CIM offers ecommerce solutions that deliver an impact on your brand and ROI. We provide concise data, with key recommendations and strategic insights about pivotal developments in your focus areas. Our vision is to be the most valuable source of web based consulting intelligence for our customers. Visit chiefinternetmarketer.com for a customized social marketing strategy  that will drive your business forward.