We have witnessed a dramatic evolution in media in the past few years – the media elite matter less every day, everyone is the media, and everyone matters. Reaching the big media gatekeepers of yesterday is no longer the challenge. Now the challenge is effectively reaching the audience that will be interested in hearing your story and engaging with you. Fortunately this new media environment has had great benefits for small business PR, giving small business owners more power to disseminate their message and reach their target audiences. Here we offer some of our best, cost-effective PR tips for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Create a Press Release There are several cheap and free options these days for issuing a press release. Platforms such as PR Web offer business owners access to a large network of media outlets and bloggers on the cheap, while giving them the ability to target specific and relevant audiences. You may also want to consider submitting your press release to the editors of specific news outlets you are trying – Read the full article
Small business owners often rely on leads in order for them to keep their business afloat. The only problem is that online lead generation can be a very difficult thing to master, especially when the goal is not just simply to come up with a huge list. The quality of the leads is something that owners need to consider as well. Trying to hit both goals can be very tricky. Most people assume that the numbers are all the matter in online lead generation. But what is the use of a big list if it consists mostly of unqualified leads which cost not just money but time as well? Online lead generation is a tool that allows business owners to make attractive offers to prospective buyers. In order to keep you from engaging unqualified leads, wasting both time and effort, here are a few tips. 1. Conversion Mechanisms Should Be Consistent with Purchase This is a very simple concept which – Read the full article
There are tons of ways to get more followers on Twitter. Don’t believe us? Do a quick search on Google. Countless articles, blog posts, and presentations will show you how to do just that – and subsequently win support for your business and brand through the popular microblogging / social media service. But if you’re looking for unconventional ways to increase your Twitter follower count, it might not be worth your while to sift through so much online content, only to find the same tips and strategies. So we came up with this list, which we hope differentiates your Twitter social media marketing efforts from that of others – and will just as successfully prompt users to click that green Follow button. 1. Join tweetups. These face-to-face meetings between a local community of Twitter users can help you meet new contacts, find new partners and clients, establish your industry expertise, gain more followers, and say something without a 140-character limit. – Read the full article
While the concept of online marketing can seem strange and almost unnecessary for the food and drink industry, there are a whole range of benefits that can come from having a good online presence. In this post I want to cover some of the most useful options available and how these can be applied to your business to help increase your exposure and ultimately lead to more customers coming through your doors. You’ll need a website Before you attempt any sort of Internet marketing you are going to need a website. This shouldn’t be a problem as most businesses nowadays have realized the need to have a website and have already got this step covered. But after investing time and money into a website to represent your business, doesn’t it seem wasteful not to get it in front of your potential customers? That’s where the next step comes in. Try out search engine marketing Millions of people use search engines – Read the full article
Social media has garnered a great deal of attention for big business. Corporate budgets are able to integrate complete marketing campaigns and promote them on social media. If you are a small business looking to be the next social media influencer, you are probably finding out how tough it is to engage with users on social media. However, there is some good news for you and for other small- and medium-sized business owners. The 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report saw that SMBs who used social for local marketing saw boosts in exposure, traffic, and sales. Whether you are a late adopter or consider yourself a social media pioneer, chances are, if your business is doing some sort of social media marketing, you at least understand its significance. Over 90 percent of small business owners and Internet marketers believe that social media is important to their business. Depending on the industry you operate in and how “brand-heavy” you are influences – Read the full article
If you’re the type of person who can’t wait to open your E-mail and see the newly arrived daily deals in your inbox, well – you’re not alone. More than half of all Internet users in the U.S. find value in these E-mails, too – enough to make them subscribe to at least two daily or weekly shopping E-mails or newsletters. According to a report published recently by market research firm eMarketer, a surprising 56 percent of adult Internet users in America subscribe to at least two “daily deal” E-mails or online newsletters. 61 percent of these subscribers, moreover, said that they find enough value in these E-mails to open and read all the messages. And they don’t keep the E-mailed online deals, discounts, sales, and freebies for themselves, either. According to the report – which cited research from Yahoo! Mail and Ipsos MediaCT – 45 percent forwarded daily deal E-mails to friends and family at least once a week; – Read the full article
At Lakeshore Branding we believe in the triple bottom line philosophy, the phrase was first coined in 1994 by John Elkington, the founder of a British consultancy called SustainAbility. His argument was that companies should be preparing three different (and quite separate) bottom lines. One is the traditional measure of corporate profit—the “bottom line” of the profit and loss account. The second is the bottom line of a company’s “people account”—a measure in some shape or form of how socially responsible an organisation has been throughout its operations. The third is the bottom line of the company’s “planet” account—a measure of how environmentally responsible it has been. The triple bottom line (TBL) thus consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet. It aims to measure the financial, social and environmental performance of the corporation over a period of time. Only a company that produces a TBL is taking account of the full cost involved in doing business. For businesses, sustainability – Read the full article
Arguably, the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization is link popularity. Link popularity helps your site gain authority on the web. As a general rule, the more authority your site has, the higher it’s going to rank for keywords. Which is why it is very important to get links pointing to your site from other relevant websites and build up your sites authority. Good links can boost your rankings very quickly and effectively. Lakeshore Branding has a proven successful method of helping you effectively highlight the relevance and quality of your website in order to surge ahead in search rankings. Utilizing best practices in SEO to craft innovative strategies, we build links that always lead to relevant content – and we build them in a variety of ways. Link Building Services Guest Blogging Article Marketing Social Bookmarking High Authority Links Local Business Listings Viral Link Building
