Todays Internet Marketing Tip - Are You Yelping?

This is going to be short and sweet.  If you own a business, you need to be on Yelp!.  Why?  The simple fact is you need to stay in touch with what your customers are saying about you and your competition.  While there are at least a dozen similar websites with mobile apps that we watch for our customers.

For a small business owner, the most important is probably Yelp!.  If you have time, look at the others to see if you have more ratings and reviews somewhere else.  If not, get on Yelp! and stay in touch with your business and your customers.

There are two sides to Yelp!.  One for customers and one for business owners.  You need to be on both as an owner.  As the customer, you can see what your customers are saying about the competition and what you can do to improve your relationship with them.  Improving your relationship will improve the business automatically.  If you have a smart phone, the Yelp! app is free.

The business owners side of Yelp! will allow you to post correct information about what you do, where you are, what your hours are and other information that potential new customers need to know.  When this information is wrong because you didn't sign up and you made Yelp! guess, then your potential new customers start off with the wrong expectations.

Get on Yelp!, set the right expectations from the start and see new customers every day.

A Quick Start On The Internet

In todays market place, having a website that is easy to find is critical to your business success.  The bad news is there are over 1 million new websites being added to the internet every day.  These new websites are all after the same eyeballs and dollars that you are.  The yellow pages don’t work anymore and you’ve tried pay per click ads only to blow your budget and give up.  What is a business owner supposed to do?

The good news is that the search engines are making enough money and are starting to listen to complaints about fake or misleading advertising pages.  Google is starting to look closely at websites to make sure that there is a real business behind it.  Even the big domaineer sites are starting to add content that is almost worth reading. 

A Focused Business Strategy should Lead to a Focused Marketing Strategy.

Yesterday I was putting around Orange County in my favorite little car, a 1966 Mercedes 230SL.  There is something mystical about this car that creates an immediate love or hate response just like Beetles and Mini Coopers do.  The people that own them are more often than not smiling while they are driving around.  There is just something fun about it.  The controversial Pagoda Top of the late 60’s model Mercedes SL’s  has been the butt of jokes by many great automotive writers.

For me however, there is nothing cooler than putting up PCH in my little convertible.  The only thing missing is a cup holder.  As a Porsche engineer once told me “We make cars to drive, not to enjoy a Coca-Cola.”  Since I still have an addiction to Diet Coke, I am pretty familiar with every McDonalds in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area and Orange County, my two major hangouts.

As long as I can remember I have been going to McDonalds and In-n-Out.  My dad liked the chocolate milkshake and coffee at McDonalds better so we went there more often, at least that was his story.  I think it was because the owner of the McDonalds franchise next door to his office was a patient and we were getting free food.

Resolutions for 2011

Closing out 2010, I had a conversation with a guy about starting his own business. He really wanted to do it but he just couldn't give up the security of working for somebody else. I explained to him that security is a mindset which is based on the confidence you have in your own environment. You can work for a big company or government and you put your trust in them that they will protect your environment and your job. When you give away that trust you are hoping to exchange it for security. This is a false confidence that you receive when you trade your time for money.

If you look at the current state of the economy you can see businesses failing right and left and government workers losing their jobs almost as quickly. Security in the sense of somebody else taking care of you is gone. The truth is it has never been there. It is only when you trust in yourself and invest in yourself that you continue to build your internal confidence so your security is unfazed by outside influences.

You should never let anyone else be responsible for your security blanket this is the easy way out and it never lasts. As we go into 2011 there are a few simple things that are very hard to do yet can make a huge difference in your life. Some might call the secrets, I just call them the obvious things that most people won't bother to do.