Alberta Business Marketing

Is your business ready in case your Calgary Internet Marketing efforts take off?

I have been reading a number of blogs lately from many Calgary Internet Marketing Professionals.  I always respect those who share our market.  After all Calgary is a city of over a million people, so lots of business to go around.

Even dating back to my days in the Information Technology market, I always believed it was better to be friends with our so-called competitors rather than focusing my efforts on the competition.  You will go crazy trying to compete and you will lose business because you will take your eye of the most important ball, you clients!

Remember, after all, there is a tonne of business in Calgary and some people I would never ever run across.

When you team up with others, you learn

I love to learn from everyone and I do learn for every single interaction.  Learning is something I strive for each day.  What can I learn from all the Internet Marketing Professionals out there?  Especially those who try to cut my grass each day?  After all, this guy has been a tech person for over 15 years who just seemed to be bitten by the marketing bug and the importance of marketing for any business no matter what size, revenues and offerings.

A client taught me the importance of Internet Marketing

I met with a client recently who has a great e-commerce based website and his site sings in the Google search rankings.  He works in a competitive industry but has a very narrow niche market.  What I love about this guy, he is never satisfied and he want to continuously improve his performance.

After a great discussion about his business (a good consultant always wants to learn more about his customer right?), we discussed who his ideal client is and where his target market resides?   He asked me a very important and to the point question and I knew this was a deal breaker type of question.

Stuart, is Internet Marketing important?

I scratched my head for a bit on this question, kind of knowing what the answer is in my head but I really wanted to make sure I totally understood his business before I shouted out my answer.  After all, here is a guy who cancelled all his Calgary Yellow Page advertising to go completely online last year asking me if Internet Marketing is important.

The answer was very clear, well at least to me it was.  The answer for anyone who asks me this question is actually quite simple.  Internet Marketing is important only if fits and meets the goals of your business.  Will Internet Marketing fill a void in your plan today or in the future?  What or who are you not reaching today and how can Internet Marketing reach new markets for you?

These are all critically important questions in determining if Internet Marketing is important.  After all, you can have the best Calgary focused search engine optimization strategy but if your website is not ready to greet and receive visitors well it is a wasted effort.  How about if your salespeople can’t return a phone call, your Internet or any marketing is a wasted effort.  What about if your suppliers can’t deliver your products on time and your customers are very upset because you missed another deadline, well it is a wasted effort.

Do you see that there are many factors to determining if Internet Marketing is important?  Are you ready to receive, service and take care of the new potential business opportunities which may come your way.  Do you have the communications strategies in place to follow with leads or even a customer situation which goes sideways.

Internet marketing is just the tip of the iceberg.  An important tip of the iceberg.

Tags: Business, Business/Finance, Calgary, communications strategies, e-commerce based website, good consultant, Google Inc., head, information technology, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing efforts, Internet Marketing Professionals, search engine, search engine optimization strategy, search rankings, Technology/Internet
Posted in Advertising, Business Marketing, Marketing, Online Marketing | | Comments Off

Often tourism operators are slow to adopt new technologies. But this wait and see attitude can leave the needs of the traveler behind. Like the downhill racers waiting at the gate for the start of their race, we should all recall the starters commands from the Olympics just prior to racing from the gate on the snowboard cross race – “Attention!”

This is especially true now, with regard to how travelers are using their phones to find and use destination travel information, find restaurants, book and manage travel and even Pay for travel.

With the launch of Zoompass, soon more folks will be asking to conduct their transactions instantly, using their mobile phone.
Tourism operators need to stay alert and pay attention to new opportunities to make payment easy for their clients. Remember, the easier it is for your client to pay, the more they will buy.

Sometimes it feels as if technology is leading us down a scary fast dangerous route. As with all emerging technologies, it is prudent to wait to see which technologies are going to be broadly adopted, but once that tipping point is reached and a winner emerges (ie: paypal for online payments), there is no reason to wait. If you are paying attention, you’ll zoom past your competitors to the front of the pack.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sookie/4372967693

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Tags: free web marketing stuff
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Often tourism operators are slow to adopt new technologies. But this wait and see attitude can leave the needs of the traveler behind. Like the downhill racers waiting at the gate for the start of their race, we should all recall the starters commands from the Olympics just prior to racing from the gate on the snowboard cross race – “Attention!”

This is especially true now, with regard to how travelers are using their phones to find and use destination travel information, find restaurants, book and manage travel and even Pay for travel.

With the launch of Zoompass, soon more folks will be asking to conduct their transactions instantly, using their mobile phone.
Tourism operators need to stay alert and pay attention to new opportunities to make payment easy for their clients. Remember, the easier it is for your client to pay, the more they will buy.

Sometimes it feels as if technology is leading us down a scary fast dangerous route. As with all emerging technologies, it is prudent to wait to see which technologies are going to be broadly adopted, but once that tipping point is reached and a winner emerges (ie: paypal for online payments), there is no reason to wait. If you are paying attention, you’ll zoom past your competitors to the front of the pack.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sookie/4372967693

Tweet This

Tags: free web marketing stuff
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off

Word of mouth is likely the oldest form of advertising and traditionally one that has been nearly impossible to target and measure. But that is changing, and changing quickly. In addition to web analytics and third party audience measurement data, there is an increasing wealth of information available for organizations to measure and mine. Consumer feedback sites, social networks, blogs as well as on-site tools all provide a wealth of information that companies can use for product and service improvement. With these opportunities come new challenges, as success is a measure of more than just numbers and percentages.

The eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit (April 6 – 9) is a good place to go to really understand how far eMetrics has come. One of the panel presentations, that includes Lisa Lloyd of Microsoft (who will also be wearing her CMA hat) will address this very issue.

On a related panel, named Predictive Analytics and Digital Marketing - Paul Tyndall of RBC (also wearing his CMA hat), will be discussing how RBC and other marketers are utilizing predictive modeling in the online space.

Full disclosure – CMA is one of the association sponsors of the Summit.

.... if you are a member of CMA, you can save an additional 15% off the regular attendee rate by using discount code CMAPARTNER15 when registering for the conference.

Elizabeth Harvey, Manager of Councils and Self Regulatory Programs, CMA

Tags: Databases / Analytics, Digital
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