Blog articles that explain it all

That's right, Bacio Catering was voted the 7th best web design out of 576 entries this past week in San Diego, CA, even beating out one of mega company Carnival Cruise Lines websites, CarnivalEntertainment.com.

 We want to thank Bacio Catering for letting us go crazy on their website and giving us the freedom to make them an awesome design. We also want to thank them for providing us with such amazing photos to use on the website, without them the site would not be the same.

You can view the list of winners here: http://www.americandesignawards.com/winner.aspx?Date=08/2009 . Be sure to check out some of the other designs, the ones that beat us are simply amazing. Our hats off to them.

We have lots of specials going on right now at Steps Marketing so if you know anyone in need of an award winning website, send them our way!

Hope you all had an amazing New Year.

Steps Marketing is huge on the Holidays so we want to spread around some of that Holiday cheer. To do that we have decided to put all of our web services on special!

For a limited time we are offering custom websites for only $1,499. These sites are 100% built to your specifications and are the best marketing tool you will ever use.

Benefits of a Custom Website include:

* Ability to target tens of thousands of searchers each month

* Increased market size

* Attract new clients

* Increase sales and revenues

We are also offering our Managed Online Advertising services starting at $149 a month.

This includes:

* Advertising on Google and Facebook

* Social Media Integration and Promotion

* Local Listing Enhancement

We also have Pre-Designed websites for just $199 to setup and $19 a month.

You can see some of our custom websites here:

Bacio Catering

5^th Street Steak House

Chico State Career Fair

LaSalles

Rileys

Coldwell Banker Dufour Realty

For some reason many people seem to discount Social Media. They think it is only for kids and has no real business value to it. This is both untrue and great news for you! This means that many of your competitors do not use Social Media in their marketing mix.

 

The truth about Social Media is that yes, SOME of it is geared more towards the young. Myspace is generally used by a younger crowd than Facebook and LinkedIn. However, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are all very viable avenues for marketing and networking. Over 41% of all Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn users have a household income over $75,000. 38% of LinkedIn's users make over $100,000 a year. These are the people you want to reach.

 

Here are 4 steps to get you started with Social Media.

 

1. Ask your friends/family/customers/colleagues to add you.

Send out an email to everyone you know and ask them to follow you on Twitter, or to become your friend on Facebook. This will be the easiest way to get a network of Socail Media friends at the beginning. The best part is now that you are connect to them, you are also connected to their friends and followers.

 

2. Interact with other local businesses and organizations.

Start conversations with other local business owners, clubs, organizations, etc. on your Social Networks. Think of it as a networking event, except it is online. You are there to meet new people and to build relationships. Some of these people may become future clients, and some of them may become future partners. Either way, it helps you to spread your name and business to a group of people who are influential in your community.

 

3. Join other peoples conversations.

The great thing about Social Media is a lot of times you can join in a conversation without ever being invited. If you were at an event and just jumped into a random conversation with your opinion people might think you were weird. However, online this is very normal. If you see an interesting conversation on Twitter, go ahead and tweet in your opinion. You can do the same thing with Facebook. Chances are they will respond to you and you can start building that relationship. Aside from that, now their Social Media friends will see the conversation and they might join in as well.

 

4. Keep in touch.

Just like in your personal life, if you do not keep in touch people will start to forget about you. If you have a few people or businesses you think would be a good match for you, keep in touch with them. Every couple weeks just drop them a message asking how things are, telling them about something interesting, or just commenting on something they have written online. If you keep the conversation going they are much more likely to remember you, and even start to consider you a friend.

 

 

Social Media can be an extremely powerful networking tool when used correctly and consistently. Despite what you hear about MySpace, do not discount Social Media all together, it really can bring you in a lot of business.

Email Marketing is one of the most cost effective forms of marketing available to a business, large or small. It allows you an avenue to inform your clients and customers about anything you want them to know. Sales, new products, special events, whatever you want. Here are a few tips to help you get started when it comes to Email Marketing.

1. Collect emails like they are dollars.

Emails are actually very easy for you to collect from your customers and they can mean a lot of money to you. Make sure you or your employees ask everyone who comes into your business for their email. It is worth it to offer them an incentive to join, maybe a small discount or do free giveaways or specials only for people on your email list. Put up a small sign by your register letting them know about your list and why they should join. Many will join simply for the fact that they love your service or products and want to be a part of it.

2. Find a reason to email your list.

Email your list when you have a good reason, and if you don't have a good reason, find one! You want to email your list once every other week, or once a month. In any case, just be consistent. Here are some reasons you could email your list, you won an award, you are having a sale, you have new products/services to offer, an article was written about you, you are having a special event, you are changing locations(Big reason!), you are giving seminar, etc. etc. If you really look, there are many reasons to email your list that will be interesting to them.

3. Send a monthly newsletter.

A newsletter is a great way to keep in contact with your list and they generally get very high open rates. "Company Name - October Newsletter" seems to work very well. In your newsletter you can write about anything and everything you feel like about your business. Sales, products, discounts whatever you want. It is a great way to keep in contact and to keep them interested. Just be sure to keep them fairly short. Three solid topics and maybe a little extra is good. If it starts getting over 700 words you might want to think about cutting some of it out and sending it a couple weeks later.

Building an email list is one of my favorite ways to help promote a business. It keeps your current customers coming back for more and makes sure your past customers do not forget about you. For the price, you really can't beat it.

If you want help setting up an email campaign, give Steps Marketing a call. We're here to help your Steps toward success.

Why your business needs a website, even if you've never left town.

Many business owners think that they don't need a website because they are a local business and have no plans to sell anything online, or even just a couple of towns over. They think this because they don't understand how people use the internet and what they do with it.

Let me enlighten you a little bit.

Google is used mainly as a research tool, not a shopping tool.

Yes, many people use Google to find products to buy. But this doesn't mean they are buying these products online. Many people use Google to gather information. The large majority of people still prefer to touch something before they buy it and simply use Google to research the product or service before they make a purchase. They also use it to find where to purchase what they are looking for.

It takes much more time and effort to flip through hundreds of pages in the phone book than it does to type 3 words in Google. People decide they want something, go to Google to see where to get it, and end up in your shop or office later that day to get what they want. If you are not on Google then this extremely large segment of internet savvy users are much more likely to end up as one of your competitors clients who does have a web presence.

Google is the new yellow pages, the yellow pages is the new door stop.

Google has gone and surpassed the yellow pages so fast it'll make your head spin. The yellow pages are on their death bed. How many phone books do you have sitting at your house? I have at least 3 and I can't even remember the last time I used them. The only reason I still have them is because I am too lazy to take them to the dumpster, that and they weigh 20lbs a piece.

So if the yellow pages worked well for you in the past, then you should probably get ready to make the switch online. Before you know it the yellow pages will cease to exist and your business may be right along side it.

It's not called the information superhighway for nothing.

The internet did not get its nickname for no reason. It really is the information superhighway, as cheesy as that sounds. As I said, people use the internet to gather information. It is a place where thousands of potential customers can go at anytime of the day and learn about you and your business. You don't have to call them, write them, talk to them or anything.

Potential clients go to Google and get information about your business. If you have a great website then the chances are that you will be seeing them in your place of business sometime soon. If you have no website or a bad website, then chances are the business across town will be seeing them very soon.

There are literally hundreds of ways to use your website to promote your business. Getting a great website is just the start, but it is a start that can go a long ways