Dear CEO:

I want to thank you for the opportunity to reach out to you today, I know that you are busy…..so I will try and keep this brief.

Your web presence is poor, non-existent, incognito, losing you money and quite honestly….sucks! It lacks the true meaning behind having a website and that is to increase your profits, yes that is correct….increase your profits! Now you are asking how do I know this?? Well, it is quite simple…..your potential buyers (prospects) cannot find you, which means you do not exist in their eyes, which means they will never have the opportunity to buy from you, which means you are losing money.  Feel free to continue to spend your hundreds of thousands of dollars on trade shows, trade journals, print advertising, TV commercials, Radio Spots, direct mail and the many other traditional forms of marketing available. Meanwhile, realize that 90% of all buying research and decisions takes place through the internet.

I know what you are saying, we are doing SEO, SEM, Social Media and some other forms of Internet Marketing Services and I have to stand right up and tell you…..you are not! You might be dabbling in it, playing around with it, testing things, increasing traffic and perhaps feel that your outsource firm or internal efforts are maximizing your potential, when the truth is due to their uneducated, lack of knowledge….you are losing money. Your Internet Marketing campaign must be conversion and profit focused and most external and internal teams do not have the experience or knowledge to make that happen……so you keep losing money.

You see I have been through this with your marketing department, sales manager, IT department and various other executives within your company and they seem to have this fear that you will deny this need even though it is a MUST HAVE. I have strongly demanded that I cannot believe you would take this approach since this is such a missing link to your overall marketing strategy and one that cannot be ignored any longer. Perhaps, you should re-engage your marketing department and various other execs showing them your support of such an initiative.

See my job is to take your online presence to a whole new level that you cannot even comprehend and I know that sometimes there is not even a budget established. Not having a budget is truly not a good enough reason to lose an enormous amount of potential income especially for a strategy that is so precisely trackable. Go find out how many people viewed that TV Commercial you ran or saw the full page magazine ad you placed in that trade journal…..not gonna happen, is it?

Well I have taken up enough of your time today and I will follow this letter up with repeated phone calls and contact points until you see the error of your ways and want to start making a difference and increase your companies profits. After all, you would not want me to start reaching out to the owner and/or board of directors…now would you?

Make it a great day!

Sincerely,

Your Best Shot At Internet Immortality

Note: Jeff Plucker is the newest addition to the ProspectMX team of internet marketing consultants. If your company is in need of SEO or internet marketing in the Atlanta-area and you’re interested in learning more about how ProspectMX can boost your business in 2010, please contact him.

Question: How much do you know about your website and internet business?

What percentage of your revenue is generated online? How many people search for your business? How many people search for what services your business offers? If you increased your online presence by (fill in the blank) percentage what would that do to your bottom line?

Roughly 2 billion searches are done everyday on Google! Is your piece of the internet pie what you want or know you can have?

You can write me a check, I’ll take a picture of it with my cell phone and immediately have it deposited into my account. Takes all of about 2 minutes…

As for traditional advertising… TV, radio, magazines, billboard, etc… while there is a decline in their quantity and effectiveness, I will admit they are not going away. However, newspapers are widely shutting down, going online, or drastically reducing their staff to cope with the change. And how many of you now record shows so you can skip the commercials? With the iPod, CDs and satellite radio who really listens to their radio anymore?

More and more people are “living” on their computer. My brother, for example, shut off his cable and uses the internet’s many options to watch TV, movies, gather news and communicate.

What does all this mean? It means that 2010 is the Year of Internet Marketing!

Get The Most Out Of The Year Of Internet Marketing

“As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth’s population uses the services of the Internet.” – Wikipedia.

2010 is the year that successful companies will realize they must have a proactive approach to the internet in order to maximize their overall marketing and sales goals. They must capitalize on the internet’s power and mobility:

• increasing traffic to their website
• converting the traffic into a lead or the lead into a sale

Companies will be capturing the interest of roughly 1.5 billion people that are online everyday. Trust me…this is a piece of pie you want to have!

But what does internet marketing really entail? Is it as simple as just having a website? Or doing a PPC campaign? Or using Social Media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter? Am I restricted to just my website? Or is it one of the dozens of other services out there?

To give a short answer… a true internet marketing campaign entails everything that the internet offers. And everything the internet offers is extensive. Since no one wants to read a blog longer than War and Peace, I will break it down as simple as possible.

The Building Blocks Of Great Internet Marketing

It all starts with the website. People want pretty, but a website needs certain things that sometimes makes pretty – well, pretty difficult. Once you have the design then you must make sure it’s optimized. Pretty doesn’t sell blue widgets. Starting to get a little discomfort in your head?

You must optimize for the search engines. What does that mean? How about your conversion ability? It’s great that you have 1000 people coming to your website a week.  But if they aren’t converting – what have you really accomplished?

What keywords do you rank for? How ARE people coming and how MANY people are coming to your site? What is your competition doing?

Oh… and does anyone have some Tylenol? I have a full blown headache.

The Marketing Piece Of Internet Marketing

Now that we have the website ready – what’s next? Now you have to get it seen. Since you don’t just want your friends and current customers being the only ones on your website – do you do organic? Pay per click? Now more questions come up…

How do I do that? Where do I do that? Is it more important to go from 5th to 2nd, or 12th to 8th? How long does it take? What are the benefits of one versus the other? Are these the only two options?

What happens if I just want to skip this step and use social media marketing? But Facebook will not help my business you say? Twitter is for celebrities like Ashton Kutcher… not my multi-million dollar business! Think again. You have customers that love you… now let’s use them to spread the love!

What about using other people’s websites? What happens when someone uses the internet to harm your business? What can you do? And can it be done wrong? Will Google punish you if it’s done incorrectly? How about blogs, articles, press releases, forums, etc?

Ahhhh… please get me the Extra Strength Tylenol… it’s a full migraine now!

Hire The Right Internet Marketing Firm

How do I know which internet marketing firm is correct for me? How do I know it’s not someone that just wants my money? Or a kid sitting in his basement that I never see? Can you really know “what I want” by just a 15 minute conversation on the phone? Or more importantly can you really know “what I need?”

Because I might want the fries… but an apple is better.

So… 2010 is the year of Internet Marketing. It’s the year more and more companies will maximize their online presence. But it’s important to do it correctly. And it’s important to hire the right firm.

But mostly – it’s important to start early! This is one area you don’t want to wait while your competitor is doing it.

Yes… keep up with the Joneses on this one!

Whether or not everyone understands how it works, internet marketing produces results for its adopters. Its hard to argue against fully utilizing a medium when 80% of your target market uses it for initial research, right?

To help share our knowledge with everyone interested in doing Lancaster internet marketing, Dave Conklin of ProspectMX is taking his wealth of internet marketing know-how on the road and passing along “secrets of success” to local business owners.

In a combined effort with the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry, ProspectMX will be hosting a two-day web marketing workshop October 28 and 29 from 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

The two part workshop is divided into five categories, all of which ProspectMX utilizes to develop its custom internet marketing campaigns:

• Custom Lead Generation
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Systems Tracking
• Lead Generation Follow Up
• Customer Loyalty Building

Get tips on how to write internet copy that sells, analyze competitors websites, and how to use FREE web tracking systems.

Unsure if the two-day internet marketing workshop is for you? Meet Dave and learn how the internet can help you create an innovative marketing strategy with a preview of the two-day workshop Thursday, October 16 from 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Early bird registration for the preview is $60 for non-chamber members, but attendees of the preview receive a $30 credit towards workshop registration. Day of registration for non-chamber members is $65.

Non-member pricing for the two-day workshop is $995. Discounts apply for the preview and workshop for Lancaster County Chamber members.So get out of the office, learn something new, and become a MASTER of internet marketing.

To register or for more information on the workshop and the preview session, contact Angi Fritz at by phone at 717.397.3531 ext. 172 or e-mail profdev@lcci.com

Our home city – Lancaster, PA – has seen visits from both major party presidential candidates in the last week. Since the 2008 election is fast approaching, and the candidates have been playing the politics game in our backyard so frequently, I wanted to take a second and analyze each president’s internet marketing campaigns.

For starters, each candidate is using the essential social media and networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, Digg. Obama has the appearance of being more “tech savvy,” thanks to his Twitter profile with over 78,000 followers.

Obama’s use of the web as a driver for donations has been well executed. In a random selection of ways to get to Obama’s online home – Google organic search results, Google PPC links, direct website visits, and mobile searches by Blackberry – our team found four custom lead generation forms to fill out before hitting the main page. Two were e-mail capture forms, two were for donations.

Only one pay-per-click ad led to a donation form on the McCain site, but the Arizona Senator isn’t neglecting the internet. The Wall Street Journal noticed McCain’s camp is using an ambush pay-per-click campaign. Search “Joe Biden” and check out the top sponsored listings – “Joe Biden on Obama” links to McCain’s site. Very sneaky, sir.

McCain’s campaign is placing a heavy focus on this year’s election issues with its PPC. Search “housing crisis” and “U.S. economy” in Google… McCain will have a PPC ad there – Obama won’t.

The internet is definitely playing a huge role in this year’s election. Its cool to see how each candidate has found a completely different way to use the power of the mighty internet and search engines to their advantage.

Any other cool internet marketing tools the candidates are using that we missed? Drop us a line below.

Sales departments wish that marketing would stop thinking they are the rulers of the earth, marketing departments wish sales departments would take their cocky arrogant attitudes to another planet for… well… ever, and the tech crew wishes that sales and marketings’ peanut-sized brains would grow at least to a size where they could identify what caused a problem rather than stating what the problem is.

Today (and this was confirmed through some meetings we’ve had in recent weeks), companies large and small have these three vital departments wasting TONS of time, energy and resources due to a lack of understanding in modern business principals.

Marketing departments need to understand that the days of throwing a hundred grand at a TV or billboard campaign and watching the sales teams phones light up are a thing of the past. People are able to educate themselves about you now with the click of a mouse. They are doing the research light years ahead of when they used to… and they’re doing it without your help. It’s just them and their Dell laptop. That’s right sales guys… there’s no cheese ball with a big ‘ol smile “helping” them in making their “best choice”. They are all alone and there’s nothing you can do about it.

So, here’s what needs to happen… and quickly… or your fortune 500 company or dream of a Fortune Small Business cover story may just go bust in the next few years.

Tech

Guys and gals… listen up… Your job isn’t to sit in a room and code any more. That’s part of it, but put your marshmallow shooter away because you need to put in a little more time now. Marketing is now in your job description whether you like it or not. It’s your job to create lead generating web sites, content management systems, and automated follow up systems for the marketing department. Don’t like it? OK… go work for Microsoft or Google in a department that has no influence on sales or marketing. When you’re part of a company that has active sales representatives and spends money on marketing… it’s your job now to get involved and think ‘tech’ with sales and marketing in mind.

When it comes to technology, today’s marketing department members tend to be dopes. Don’t be offended marketers… it’s not all of you, just the majority. They were taught the ins and outs of marketing and it had NOTHING TO DO WITH TECHNOLOGY. The “idiocity” that you sense really isn’t “idiocity”… it’s ignorance, and they are uncomfortable stating that they don’t understand something. Work with them, teach them, and show them the creative side that 80% of you possess. Prove that you can make their lives better and easier… it’s finally time for you to shine, my friend… so do it brightly.

Marketing

Listen closely… you DO NOT know everything. I know! That education of yours was “way expensive” and you did learn a lot about psychology and how people react to the color blue… but tech has something to offer you. And guess what… It’s now your job to do the sales reps job! What???!?!?! I know, it hurts to hear that and your ears and cheeks are getting redder and redder. Listen though.

Product and service buyers (whether consumers or businesses) used to have to call a sales rep to get information. Well, now it’s right online. All “Bonnie Buyer” has to do is give Google a shout and Google tells all right then and there. So first off, if Google doesn’t feel you’re the most important when Bonnie types “” into the search engine, give “Timmy Techguy” a call and have them get you to the top of the engines. If they don’t know how, hire someone to.

Once they find you… your job isn’t done. You need to convert them into a lead by getting their information. Here’s where A LOT of SEO’s screw up royally. So many search engine optimizers are so consumed with getting to the coveted number one spot that they don’t even think about what’s going to happen with the traffic once it gets there. Type just about anything into google and click on the number one result. You’ll find that about 90 percent of them don’t even have a call to action on the page. WHAT A WASTE!!!

OK, so you’re getting traffic and getting leads now, right? So now you’re going to give them to sales, right? NO! STOP! DON’T. If you do the water cooler talk in the sales department will sound something like this:

“Man, Harry… how about these horrible leads that marketing’s been sending over… they really suck!”

Now, am I saying that sales is “right”? No, I’m not… but if you want growth in your organization… you need to “cultivate the leads” so that they actually turn into prospects. So, call “Timmy Techguy” again.

Have Timmy build you a customized CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. Or, of course, he could use ours if he calls us. 8 )

The CRM will automatically follow up with the leads via email and schedule things like letters, phone calls, thank you cards, gift sending and more to your clients based on the product or service that they’re interested in. Marketing… you’re now the “assistant” to the sales team. Does that tick you off? Well it shouldn’t… just deal with it.

Sales People

I’m going to make this simple. Ditch the BS. Toss out the superficial attitude. It smells like the trash can in my garage (I have 4 kids… two in diapers) and EVERYONE can smell it a mile away. But here’s the thing, you don’t need it anymore. When you get leads from marketing, it’s because they have been followed up on and they’re now ready to buy. Your job becomes explaining to them why they should buy from you and not one of your competitors. Be respectful and understand that any attempts to snowball them can be stopped with the click of the mouse. A huge issue I see every day with sales people is their lack of technical ability… especially those over the age of 35… it like an epidemic. Go take a class for goodness sake.

So look, all of you get in the same room together, and it will be uncomfortable. Tech… you’re the kingpin bringing it all together, so if you don’t like to talk in groups, get some help. The bottom line is: get traffic – get leads – cultivate leads (through automation and personal touch) – close leads.

This is your show. Now have at it.

I’ve been trying to talk my customers into some three way link love lately. Crazy!?!?! Yep!

Check it out. When you’re building links for a new domain name that was recently purchased, which some experts feel isn’t worth the time, I believe that it’s EXTREMELY important to start first by creating content that is actually valuable for the sites competitors… NOT THE CUSTOMERS.

This is mis-understood by many of our customers before we get a chance to explain it to them. I’ll explain and feel free to tell me I’m insane in the comments.

Let’s pretend that I’m doing a lead generation campaign for a large event planning company. This company wants to meet people who are planning large corporate picnics and retreats nationwide. They have JUST purchased a domain name and because of that they have no authority with the search engines.

At this point, we would build the site in two separate pieces on the same domain. The first piece would include a basic lead generating landing page that we would toss adwords and yahoo ppc at and begin generating leads immediately.

The second phase, however would not be targeted to the sites potential customers. It would actually be targeted toward the sites competitors and provide those people with something remarkable so that it builds links. You see, if we create something of great value for the competitors to use on their sites, they will link to the new site.

You could create something of value for your potential customers as well… but here’s the thing… In many cases the customers do not have sites that would provide you with RELEVANT links that would effectively tell the search engines what your site’s about.

If you get ten links from sites that show up in the search results when you enter [your keyword phrase], won’t the search engines more quickly consider you relevant to [your keyword phrase]? Of course.

So, where the heck does the three-way take place? Right here! Once you have created a lot of industry targeted links by providing your competitors with creative and remarkable content, tools, articles, ebooks, videos… or whatever, then it’s time to use the organically ranked section of your site to help your customers.

The bottom line? Don’t worry about the portion of your site you want organic ranking for actually getting traffic from potential customers. Build resources for your competitors first… create great relationships with them… REAL ONES. Become trusted… and then go after the customers once you have trust in the industry.

So I was making a sales call the other day to an individual who filled out one of our online forms interested in some more information about ProspectMX.  I called the number and a guy answered and I asked for the person that was on the form and he proceeded to explain there is nobody here by that name. Then I asked if this was so and so business and he said no and then I obviously read back the number on the form and he said that is my number, actually my cell number. At that point there was no more need for pointless questions and my sales mind simply overlooked wrong guy right number and proceeded to the obvious next question. However, before a hint of air could pass through my lips the guy on the other end asked “So, what is it that you do?” I kindly went into detail about our services and that lead into a 20 minute pitch which proceeded into a scheduled appointment for next week.

Now one obvious conclusion is that this person is actually the person that did indeed fill out our form and is caught up in it so much at this point, there is no turning back. Whatever the case, I want to thank either my new prospect or Mr. Smith for filling out our form and putting in this other persons phone number. And Mr. Smith please call me anytime with your needs and feel free to leave a wrong name with the right phone number.

Most people I talk to are triggered to Internet Marketing by one simple conclusion “Nobody Can Find Me”. Without internet marketing your website is a brochure sitting in the storage closet undelivered to potential clients. The amount of traffic that goes by that closet and sees your brochure is minimal and if someone goes by that closet and looks at your brochure they were probably searching for pens or a tablet and stumbled across your brochure and for the most part you will not even realize they took a look at your brochure. There is not necessarily anything wrong with someone that is looking for pens to see and read your brochure, the real problem is not knowing that they looked at your brochure.

Your website is alot of times the end result….not the beginning. If you are not doing anything to drive traffic to your site and you do not have your site equipped to track and capture information from people visiting it, you are throwing away the 10s of thousands of dollars you spent on your website. Make sure your Internet Marketing plan includes every step of the process from every aspect of “Being Found” to full traffic reports to complete lead capture from your site and landing pages to contact management to prospect conversion.

Internet Marketing is more than a website….it is a complete online solution for any business.

There are so many different forms of marketing that don’t really make sense. For years, companies have spent countless dollars on marketing vehicles like magazines, television commercials, billboards and more without having an understanding of what the exact results would be.

There is no longer a need to do that. The guys at ProspectMX have figured out a way to guarantee you results for your marketing dollars. Just imagine what it would be like if you could go to your advertising agency and tell them that you weren’t going to pay them if they didn’t produce you results.

As experts in search engine marketing and online at lead generation, we are able to figure out exactly how consumers who are interested in your products will respond to certain advertisements and offers they are presented with over the Internet.

Imagine for a second that you sell golf balls. It would probably be true that you wouldn’t want to market your golf balls to people who don’t golf. The customized lead generation pages that we create for your company would specifically target an audience who golfs. Not only would the page target that audience, but so would the marketing campaign that we put together. We can create marketing campaigns that not only specifically target an audience in terms of interests but also an audience in terms of geography. What we have created is truly unique and powerful and will do wonders for your businesses bottom line.

How It All Works

The first, and most important thing that we can do is to have a phone consultation where we will go over your current marketing systems. It is important that we understand exactly what your current ROI is in your different marketing programs. If you’re currently not measuring those bottom lines, we can consult you on ways to do so. Without proper measurements, it’s impossible to understand how beneficial the results are.

Once we understand your current marketing systems, we will be able to begin identifying your target customer. Understanding things like what terms your target customer might search for on the Internet, their age, sex and other factors will help us to put together an incredible test campaign. This test campaign is what defines the cost per lead, retainer fees and other aspects of your customized lead generation program.

The next, and most exciting, part of this entire process is the test campaign. This is where we find out exactly how consumers in your industry respond to the offers that we present to them on the Internet. Before we ever do any of this testing, we sit down with our team and analyze what offers your customers may or may not be interested in. We also do research that tells us what terms are popular on the internet. Then we create specific advertisements for each of those offers and keywords. This is a long process where we do a lot of thinking about your target customer. There is a nonrefundable $500-$1000 fee for the testing phase. In some rare cases it may actually be more, but you will know this before we do the campaign.

Finally, we will present you with an agreement. This agreement will outline three basic things:

1. The total cost per lead.
2. The number of leads that we can create in a given amount of time.
3. The retainer required to get the campaign started.

Once we have agreed upon the terms we will begin your campaign, we will continue to deliver leads to you until your retainer runs out. When it does, you’ll have the choice to give us more of a retainer or to stop the campaign altogether. In most cases, we do not do long-term contracts. However, we will provide you with a discount if you do so.

To get involved with our exciting customized lead generation solutions. All you have to do is give us a call at 717-431-0505 or send us a text message using the box to the right.