Bluetooth Proximity Marketing

June 25th, 2010 No Comments

Bluetooth Proximity Marketing involves setting up a server that seeks out mobile devices that have bluetooth enabled within a local transmission range of up to 400 meters and automatically sending the handsets advertising messages that can contain audio, games, images, video or text messages.

This type of marketing is not considered as spamming because the recipient has to opt-in to receiving the content. For example a restaurant can push a message to people who are walking by their location to say “PIZZA JOE is trying to send you 10PercentDiscountCoupon.jpg. Do you wish to accept?”. If the recipient selects “Yes” they would download an image containing a voucher that they can present in the restaurant.

The technology allowing this is improving all the time. No longer is it necessary to have a dedicated computer set up to run the bluetooth marketing campaign. Instead there are standalone bluetooth advertising machines whose sole purpose is to seek out mobile devices and push content to them within a certain radius.

Already expensive high-end devices are in use at football stadiums, airports, shopping malls, and other high traffic areas. In the near future we can expect to see mid-range devices becoming available on the market that will enable small to medium sized businesses like retail shops, taxi drivers, and other organisations to use the power of bluetooth marketing to send advertisements to people in their vicinity.

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How to use Twitter for more traffic and leads

June 4th, 2010 No Comments

Twitter.com can be an excellent resource for your business if you use it effectively.

Create a high quality profile

Twitterers will judge a book by it’s cover so to speak and you should make sure that your Twitter profile contains a relevent picture rather than the default image, this could be your photograph or company logo for example, and you should select one of the options of background images and not leave your background as the default choice.

Your profile description can be 160 characters so make sure you use them wisely. Make sure that it includes a strong call to action linked to benefits. Use the website URL to link back to your lead capture or squeeze page.

Post your first tweet!

You should never sell in your first tweet – or any other tweets for that matter. You should make it sound intriging and include a link to a URL. I recommend you use the URL shortening service www.bit.ly which can also provide analytics so that you can see how many clicks your tweets are getting.

Do’s and don’ts of tweeting

Post information that will be useful to your followers. This will encourage people to follow you back when you follow them. Remember that your profile URL link and your description do the job of promoting your business. Make sure that all your tweets are interesting and informative.

Ask your followers questions and try to get them to interact with you. Remember to occasionally post something that is personal about you so that people know you are a real person and not just an automated account.

Don’t just post links to your own articles and websites. Instead post links to interesting news articles, YouTube videos, photos, retweet your follower’s interesting links, and post motivational quotes that will keep your followers interested and hopefully get them to retweet you to their followers.

Automatically thank new followers

Use the free service provided by SocialOomph to send an auto-DM message to your new followers. You should thank them for following you, explain you would like to help them, and provide a bit.ly shortlink to your main squeeze page.

This helps to build a relationship with your new followers and drives traffic to your site.

Add new followers regularly

Use the search facility of Twitter to find people who are tweeting about subjects related to your particular niche or industry. For example a florist might search for people mentioning “flowers”, and a watch retailer could search for people mentioning “Rolex”,”new watch”,”buy a watch”, etc.

Once you get a search result list simply put your mouse over their avatar image and click the Follow + link that appears. Repeat this process each day until you have enough followers.

Many of the people you follow will in turn follow you and this way you quickly build your followers. Periodically you and unfollow anyone who hasn’t followed you. There are several tools on the internet that allow you to unfollow unmutual twitter users semi-automatically.

Interact with your followers daily

Effective use of Twitter for business purposes involves building relationships with your followers, providing them with valuable free information, and never trying to sell anything to them or spamming them. Offer valuable help and you will experience huge success in your business leveraging the penetration of Twitter.

Speak directly to your followers as though you are speaking to one person. Find out what makes you unique in your niche and highlight those differences in your tweets. Research your target audience and try to cater for their wants and needs. This way you will come up with the best tweets and experience the greatest increase in your web traffic and leads.

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Is your site getting enough backlinks?

May 25th, 2010 No Comments

Backlinks are the links from other websites that point to your URL and they are important from an SEO perspective because the number of links to your site determine it’s relative quality in the search engines.

The more links to your site (especially from other high quality sites) the better your site will rank for the keywords contained in the title, headline and body copy of your pages.

Increasing the number of backlinks to your website increases your link popularity and if you get links coming from websites with a high Google Page Rank some of that Page Rank will transfer to your website and increase your page rank too.

You can check how many incoming links there are to your website by going to Google and doing a search like this: link:yourdomain.com

This will tell you approximately how many links there are to your page. For a more accurate report log in to Google Webmaster Central and you can check your incoming links report there. That is probably the most accurate backlink checker available.

The best way to build backlinks and increase your Page Rank which will cause your pages to appear higher in the search results for specific keywords is to hire an experienced SEO professional.

I offer backlinking services at just £25 per month per URL. You can specify up to five different keywords that you would like to target. I highly recommend that you build links to internal pages of your website rather than the main URL.

I’m only able to work with a limited number of clients due to time constraints. For further details please text BACKLINK to 07967 646039 and I will call you back to discuss your requirements.

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Windscreen Replacement Nottingham?

May 21st, 2010 No Comments

windscreen repairA couple of months ago if you searched for windscreen replacement Nottingham on Google the website of Screenfit Nottingham Ltd wouldn’t even appear on the search radar.

Managing Director Chris was at the end of his tether. His business was on the brink of bankruptcy and he was desperate to find a solution.

Nothing he had tried had worked. The Yellow Pages advertising that traditionally supplied the vast majority of his customers was performing less well every year and Chris was frustrated to see the Yellow Pages books laying outside people’s homes following delivery – not even taken inside.

The website that he was set up with by his hosting provider BT Tradespace was failing to pull in the business, it was hard to edit, and even more difficult to find on the search engines. They were charging him for expensive pay per click advertising but he was not receiving any enquiries as a result. It was like flushing money down the drain.

Chris wondered if the market for windscreen replacements in Nottingham was drying up and he might have to retrain into another trade. Had it become over competative with big names such as Autoglass and Kwik Fit dominating the search landscape?

His accountant Linda put him in touch with myself and I quickly put together a new website with a very simple lead capture page and a pay per click campaign on Google Adwords to drive customers to the new site.

The result has been absolutely astonishing. His business is totally turned around. The phone went from being silent for hours on end to now ringing off the hook!

Chris is so busy and the future is looking rosey thanks to the simple lead capture site I set up that targets people at the precise moment they search for “windscreen replacement Nottingham” and other key phrases relating to his business. As soon as they visit the site and enter their name and phone number the information is sent by SMS text message to Chris’s mobile phone so he can promptly call them back and provide a quote.

Chris commented that he often rings back so quickly that they don’t answer the phone the first time. They are astonished to get such a fast response they can’t believe it’s Chris ringing back so soon. This inspires customers with immediate confidence that Chris will deliver the replacement windscreen quickly and efficiently too – and indeed he does, completing many jobs the same day.

Chris thinks the system is magic and says it is the best advertising he has ever done both in terms of how many enquiries are generated and the low cost per enquiry.

If you are ever in need of a replacement windscreen request a call back from Chris @ www.nottinghamwindscreens.co.uk

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Stop Dumping Broken Computers in Africa!

May 14th, 2010 No Comments

We must stop the dumping of electronic waste (e-waste) in Africa and help the children get the education they deserve. The problem is actually far worse than this video shows. Very young children walk barefoot in these e-waste dumps searching for wires they can burn on toxic fires to extract the copper wire that they sell for pennies a day to help their families. 

For more details please see the Basel Action Network website and give your support. Please do your part by ensuring that your organisation is using proper waste recyling systems and your old broken computers are not ending up in Africa.

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Hot Spots for Outsourcing

May 13th, 2010 No Comments

For more information on identifying areas of your business that can be improved by outsourcing work to freelancers offshore sign up to the free newsletter by entering your email address on the top right of this page.

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Quick Guide To The Cosmic Ordering Service

May 13th, 2010 No Comments

I’ve just finished reading a great little book I’ve been meaning to get around to reading for ages. It’s “The Cosmic Ordering Service”, a guide to realising your dreams. It’s along the same lines as Joe Vitale’s Attractor Factor.

The author, Barbel Mohr who was born in Germany, light-heartedly explains various remarkable eventsand co-incides she experienced that led her to believe in a higher power she calls the Cosmic Ordering Service. Understanding how to order, she explains, gives you the freedom of living a more magnificent existance and doing great good in the world.

Here is my quick summary of the Cosmic Ordering process:

  • Order from anywhere – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
    The Cosmic Ordering Service is open around the clock. It doesn’t matter if it’s 3am in the morning. Simply choose a time when you are feeling good and you can act with faith.
  • Only place your order ONCE!  
    The universe does not need any encouragement to deliver correctly and on time. You don’t need to keep asking or checking up on how your order is coming along.
  • You will be guided to receive the delivery.
    You may experience intuition, a gut feeling, through something someone says accidentally or in passing, or through other intangible means that will guide you to the exact place at the exact time where you will receive your order.
  • Avoid negative requests.
    Don’t say what you don’t want. Say what you do want. This goes without saying and is a basic principle of NLP and ensures that you will have a good connection with the Cosmic Ordering Service.
  • Always acknowledge receipt of your order.
    The Cosmic Ordering Service rewards customers who order regularly and acknowledge receipt of their orders. Even if it seems like a co-incidence when your order turns up simply say thank you to the Universe for delivering it to you.

The advice is to start off with something small and inconsequential to try Cosmic Ordering out and see if it works. Then once you receive something small try for something larger. Requests where you set a date that you want to receive your order are said to be given higher priority by the Cosmic Ordering Service.

My advice is try it. Let me know if it works!

To read more I highly recommend the complete guide to the Cosmic Ordering Service by Barbel Mohr available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

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