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I was reading a great post from Mashable on 9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing, and it got me thinking about how many local businesses actually use some kind of online marketing.  My gut feeling (and I’m new to this space so I’m by no means an expert) is that beyond a basic website local businesses are missing out in online marketing completely.

Here’s the disconnect that I see.  Take a look at this picture.

The phone companies like to put big piles of Yellow books outside of apartment buildings because they want to get them in the hands of as many people as possible.  The printing costs and distribution of these books has to be quie costly.  But every single local business is willing to buy an ad so it’s still a profitable business.  The problem is that most people do not use a phone book anymore – especially the younger generation.  I know a huge pile of books sat outside my apartment complex for weeks because no one took them.  It’s so much easier to simply type in a search query on Google and instantly get 10 relevent results than leafing through the Yellow Pages hoping to find what you’re looking for.  Combine this with the fact that smartphones are becoming ubiquitous, and it’s pretty clear to see that online advertising is going to be 100 times more effective than buying a Yellow Pages ad in the future.

So what kind of online advertising can local businesses engage in?  There are a lot of different ways you could go, and it’s probably best to experiement to determine what’s most effective.  Here are my suggestions on where to start:

1. Search

Search advertising should be the foundation of any kind of online marketing initiative because it is exactly what’s replacing the Yellow Pages.  When someone wants to find a local business it’s so much easier now to just type it into Google and get to exactly what you want.  Even if the company doesn’t have a website Google will find relevant locations on a map and on online business listings such as Yelp and Citysearch.  If you do have a website be sure to optimize your pages for local searches.  Instead of your page title reading “Dr. Smith – Dentist” it should read something like “Indianapolis Dentist and Orthodontics – Dr. Smith.”  You have a much better chance of showing up when searches are done for your most popular keywords.  Another avenue in search advertising is pay-per-click.  The nice thing about pay-per-click marketing is that you can be extremely specific in who you target.  You can target searches from a specific geographic area (so you could have you ad show on all searches for within the Indianapolis area for “dentist”) or you can target geographically based terms (like Carmel Dentist).  Your ad will automatically show up at the top of the sponsored results if you’re willing to pay enough rather than having to build up your rankings over time for organic search results.

2. Social Media

Your business should have a presence on sites like Twitter or Facebook if you’re catering to consumers because those are the services that people are actively using.  On Twitter you can actively engage with customers if they’re writing comments about your business.  On Facebook you can create a Fan Page and see who your most loyal customers truly are.  There are countless ways to use these services with different promotions, and it’s best to find someone knowledgeable in this space to help.

3. Maps

Make sure that your business claims it’s local listing on services like Google Maps.  As a proud Droid owner I can definitely say that I use my Google Maps app more than almost any other app on my phone and it’s constantly getting me to where I need to go.  If I’m looking for a quick bite to eat and your restaurant isn’t on the map then you’re not going to get my business simply because I couldn’t find you.

4. Location-Based Services

There are quite a few location-based networks that can be extremely effective for local businesses. Services like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Google Latitude, Yelp and others are gaining steam quickly and becoming mainstream.  The general concept is that users can check-in at their location and then broadcast that to their friends.  These services are set up perfectly for promotions at restaurants and coffee shops so it’s definitely important that you look into taking advantage of them while they’re still in their infancy and smartphone use is starting to grow rapidly.

As a local business you can’t afford to miss out on the amazing online marketing opportunities that are now available.

We’re getting read to send out our wedding invitations within the next month.  We have a few of the addresses that we need, but most of them we’ll need to get from our guests via phone or email.

We’ll be putting the addresses into a spreadsheet so we have everything in one place.  So I decided to simply link a Google Spreadsheet to the email so that everyone could input their information directly into the spreadsheet.  This eliminates all of the copy and pasting we would have to do maually.  Now when our friends get our email they can open the spreadsheet and follow the format that’s already set up for name and address.

Here’s how to set this up:

1. Create a new spreadsheet in Google Docs and type in your column headings based on the information you want to gather

2. Save the spreadsheet with a unique ame

3. Click on “Share” in the top right, and then check the boxes for “Allow all others to view” and “Also allow them to edit.”  Now you can copy and paste that link into an email or anywhere you’d like to share it with your friends.  All the data that is entered will be updated automatically.

I laughed pretty hard at this one…his reaction is priceless

I’ve been using Bit.ly as the default URL shortener on Twitter for quite a while now.  However, I never really realized all the analytics features it has until using it with a SurveyMonkey link yesterday.  As we were working on a project for Indy Reads I sent out a survey to my network via Twitter, Facebook, and email.  I converted the link to a Bit.ly link so that it would be easy to place in an email, and also so that I could track the amount of clicks it received.  Here are the results I received:

Now I can see which medium was actually the most effective in driving traffic.  I was pretty impressed with the number of clicks it received in only a few hours, but I wasn’t quite sure whether it was because a lot of people were opening my emails or if was coming from my Twitter post.  After I reviewed the referral analytics I realized that the bulk of the traffic came through email.  This is useful information if I’m ever going to run any other similar surveys in the future.

The other thing that I really like about Bit.ly is that it’s integrated in the Shareaholic plug-in.  You can use Shareaholic on all the major browsers, and if you want to share any kind of content that you’re browsing online it’s a must.  Anytime I come across a resource on the web that I want to share on Twitter, email to a friend, or save to Delicious I simply hit the Shareaholic button.  Bit.ly is integrated as one of the services and it links directly with Twitter.  So when I’m browsing the web and find something to share I hit Shareaholic and choose Bit.ly as the service I’d like to use.  I can edit the Tweet in the window that pops up and the link and article title are automatically pre-populated.  Plus I still get all the analytics features built into Bit.ly.  This makes it easy to see what type of content I share gets the most hits.

Now I’m definitely not a car guy, but there’s one thing that’s kept my interest during car commercials lately.  The hands-free media technology, Ford Sync, is revolutionary and a big contributor to restoring Ford’s tarnished reputation.

We’ve seen how much American car manufacturers have been struggling lately – highlighted by GM’s huge free fall.  There were many different contributing factors including rising health care costs, a focus on big cars and SUV’s at a time when gas costs were the highest ever, a reliance on huge factories when demand was falling, etc.  But the biggest problem with American automakers was the lack of innovation.  Chrysler, Ford, and GM were profitable for so long that they became completely set in their ways.  They did the same things with the same workforce.  The only changes were slight manufacturing improvements, and minor design differences.  There were no game changing innovations, and that’s exactly what American automakers needed.

Enter Ford Sync.  This wireless media technology allows you to hook up your mobile phone and MP3 player to your car’s dashboard so that you can operate everything via voice command.  First of all, this helps make you a safer driver.  You no longer need to dial numbers on your cell phone or even hold it to your ear while driving.  Ford Sync also allows you to send hands-free text messages which is a huge benefit since texting while driving has been compared to drunk driving.  The other major benefit is that Ford Sync allows you to stay connected when you’re commuting.  With Twitter, Facebook, and social media becoming a major part of our lives it’s sometimes difficult for some people to go without checking their networks.  With the new Ford Sync API, many of these applications will be soon built into Ford Sync directly.

Like I said earlier, I’m not a car guy at all.  I’ve had my ’96 Corsica for over 6 years now and I don’t feel any real urgency to trade up.  I honestly have no idea whether Ford Sync would be practical for me because I haven’t looked into the kind of cars it works in or more importantly the price.  But I do know that when I start looking for a new car that a car with Ford Sync will be one of the first that I look at.  For me, I really don’t care much what my car looks like or how fast it goes.  All I need is for it to get me from point A to point B efficiently and safely.  I’d also like my commute to not feel so wasted.  Besides listening to audio programs, there’s not much I can do in the car without risking my safety.  Now that I have my Motorola Droid I’m definitely guilty of texting at times and even attempting to read emails.  I know that’s not very safe so I’d love to be able to do that hands-free.  The thing is, I know I’m not near the worst offender.  Connected, hands-free technology is a huge need for our generation.

Ford Sync alone is not enough to return Ford, and American automaking back to prominence.  The biggest positive is that Ford broke from its traditional path and caught onto a major trend.  This is only the start of more good things to come.

I’ve used Google Docs for a while now, and I’ve found it to be a nice alternative to Word and Excel.  But I didn’t REALLY start using Google Docs until this past week, and I’m hooked.

Google Docs has solved a few different problems for me.  First, I’m terrible at keeping things organized on my computer.  I like saving things to the desktop so I can see them, but soon enough I have waaay to many desktop icons to actually find anything.  With Google Docs everything is stored for me in my Google Docs account.  Sure I still have to create folders if I want to keep things easy and manageable, but even if I don’t categorize them it’s still easy to find everything in my “All Items” list.

Second, I no longer have to email files to myself.  I used to work on a file on my work computer, and then if I wanted to have it at home I would save it to my desktop and then email it to myself so I could open it at home.  I know I could use services like Dropbox or Box.net, both of which I’ve used before, but I find Google Docs to be infinitely easier and it’s free.

Aside from the benefits of keeping myself better organized, it’s helped me visualize my goals and become more productive.  In the past I’ve tried to keep to-do lists on services like Vitalist and ActionComplete, and I’m still experimenting with Remember the Milk.  But then I wanted to use weekly trackers like Joe’s Goals for my workouts and David Seah’s various productivity tools like the Emergent Task Timer.  I’ve even tried Daytum for capturing data after the fact so that I can see whether or not I’m following through on my goals.  You can tell that’s getting pretty overwhelming.  It took way too much time to log in to all of these sites and maintain all of this information.  With Google Docs I can customize everything to my liking and still be able to log in from any computer (and even my Droid).

So far I’ve created two major Google Docs spreadsheets to keep me on track with my goals:

1. Weekly Workouts – where I’ve added fields for miles run, various workouts at the gym, and exercises that I do at home like pushups, pullups, etc.  It’s quite easy to go and enter a value, and I can see my progress as compared to my goals each week

2. Weekly Personal Goals – where I’ve listed my main projects that I’d like to get done during the week and also a list of things that I’d like to do each day such as write a blog post, read for at least half an hour, and develop new business ideas.

Overall, what I’m trying to accomplish is more focus on the things that I want to get done.  Since I’m a data geek, and I like being able to see progress in spreadsheet format, this is working well for me so far.  Plus I can add ideas on things I’m working on at Sigma, the Orr Fellowship, and any other projects I’m working on.  One of those projects that’s coming soon is a new online store for pure skincare products called Repurify.  Working on this has really opened my eyes to some of the harmful chemicals we may be putting on our bodies each day with synthetic personal care products.

Tonight I made a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond.  It’s not a store that I visit frequently…in fact I can’t remember the last time I’ve been there.  My friend is getting married in a few days, and they registered wedding gifts there.  Now I didn’t have a bad experience there, but what should have taken me 10-15 minutes turned into a 40 minute affair.

I didn’t even mind that the cashier couldn’t figure out how to work the printer for the gift registry (she got all red and embarrassed when the tech guy finally came over after about 5 minutes of awkward silence and me asking random questions and showed her that all she needed to do was put paper into it.)  This was actually pretty entertaining.

What did bother me was after I was given the 4 page print-out of gifts, I was on my own to search through the mountains of kitchen utensils and bedroom accessories to find my friends’ favorite stuff.  The problem is the merchandise is stacked all the way up to the 25 foot ceilings, and there are 5 different brands for anything you could possibly think of.  To make a long story short, it took me forever to find the stainless steel spoons and multi-purpose cutting boards that I was looking for.

Couldn’t Bed Bath and Beyond mark location on their registry print outs just like a library or bookstore would do?  If I knew the spoons were in section “A6″ or simply “Utensils” it would be so much easier than going to the kitchen area of the store.  On my print-out I would automatically see where I need to go based on the gifts that I want.  It’s not like technology or organization is a problem for Bed Bath and Beyond…they have a massive (and very efficient) gift registry system that spans the entire country.  This type of system is needed more at Bed Bath and Beyond than most other stores.  During my chat with the printer-challenged cashier I asked her how much of their business is through gift registries.  She said it was about 75%.  That’s huge!  So that means 75% of the people are coming into the store trying to find specific items on a list and they’re not interested in browsing for things that they personally like best.  It’s not a big deal to browse when you’re looking for yourself, but when you’re looking to buy an item for your friend that they’ve already picked out you want to get right to it.

Maybe the confusion is by design.  Bed Bath and Beyond wants you to have to search for gifts so that hopefully you come across something you want yourself.  But honestly, I felt intimidated and overwhelmed searching through those aisles.  I kept thinking how I wasn’t looking forward to picking out items for my own wedding this summer (although I did find a few cool things that I definitely wouldn’t mind having!)

Will I go back to Bed Bath and Beyond?  Probably, because I’ll have more friends getting married, and I might need something once I get my own home.  Am I looking forward to going back?  No, because it’s really overwhelming.

Make it easy for your customers that are looking for something specific to find it quickly and get out.  It will make their experience so much more pleasant.  Are there any other compnaies that have this same problem?

Yesterday I stumbled upon a blog by Matt Morris who is a motivational speaker and author of a “Think and Grow Rich” style book called The Unemployed Millionaire.  I haven’t read his book, and this was actually the first I had ever heard of him.  I don’t necessarily endorse his work (the reviews of his book on Amazon were a little bit sketchy), but I did like one of the things he mentioned in one of the videos on his blog.

Success = Level of skill MULTIPLIED by level of effort

So essentially skill and effort are equally important when determining how successful you are.  I think it’s widely believed that your level of skill is what you need to improve if you’re going to be successful.  “Only the smartest people can do x.”  In reality, your effort contributes just as much to success as your skill.  Think about the saying “Practice beats talent when talent doesn’t practice.”  I heard that more than enough times on the basketball court growing up, and I might not have thought much about it then, but I realize now how true that statement is.  Even if you’re not the most skilled, you can accomplish what you want if you’re willing to put in the work to get there.  Of course, you have to develop your skills to some degree because you’ll end up beating your head against a wall if you don’t take the time to learn and improve your skills.

Think about how that can help you achieve your goals.  What do you need to work on more? Skill or effort?

Last night I watched the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and it really made me think about my priorities.

I read an article once (and I can’t find it for the life of me) that had a couple exercises for finding your true passion or what you truly wanted out of life.  One of these exercises was to write down all the things you think you might be passionate about, or some of the things you really want to do in life.  Then read through the list, and your true passion is the one that makes you cry.  You cry because you want it so badly and it would mean so much to you to accomplish it.

Now I’m not someone that gets all sentimental and starts crying in any feel-good movie.  But I’ve watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” twice now, and I haven’t been able to keep my eyes dry yet.

Throughout the movie you start to think of George Bailey as an underachiever.  He has grand plans to travel the world, and build things like cities or buildings.  He has the chance to get involved in a very lucrative business opportunity.  He even denies an offer from Mr. Potter to drastically increase his salary.  It seems like he’s stuck in a rut, and he’s not able to advance in his career or achieve some of his lofty goals.

Yet you realize that George is actually living the richest life of anyone in town.  He has a loving family that adores him, and he’s single-handedly helped most of the hardworking folk in town to own a house over their head through his Building and Loan Association.  Because of George, Bedford Falls was a better place and almost everyone who knew George had a better life.  When George was in trouble, everyone came rushing to his aide because they knew George had made a big difference in their life.

I’m moved to try to model my life after George Bailey.  The way he was able to help so many people on an individual basis is exactly what I want to spend my time doing.  Owning a Building and Loan Association is not in my plans, but the two areas that I think I can make a difference in the lives of my friends and neighbors are:

1. Technology and using new web applications

2. Fitness

It’s my New Year’s Resolution to focus on creating a new strategy around these two areas, and devoting a lot more of my time to this than I have been.  Be on the lookout  for some new stuff coming soon!