Legacy Marketing Services

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

One of our suppliers is running an amazing promotion on brochure printing. To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, we are passing that savings on to you and rounding it out with four additional offers for a total of five promotions for five days.

So take advantage of these specials and give your business a springtime boost! Offers are valid through May 10, 2008. Check your marketing kit and stock up.

1. Free Business Cards: Receive 1,000 business cards free with a business card design, a $69 value! (Promotion for 1,000 3.5″ x 2″ full color business cards on 14 pt card stock)
   Code: CINCOBIZ08
2. Save 30% on brochure printing: Order 1,000 for only $230, a $100 savings!(Promotion for double sided, full color brochures on 100 lb gloss book with your choice of fold)
   Code: CINCOBROCHURE08
3. Save 50% on Banner Advertising on the Kingwood Connection: Promote your business to the north Houston area on the Kingwood Connection. Lock in and save! This offer is valid on banner, featured event, and text advertising, save up to $500!
   Code: CINCOAD08
4. Save 50% on Banner Ad Designs: Need a banner ad? Get a new online look for as low as $35. Save 50% on all banner ad designs.
   Code: CINCOBANNER08
5. Save 25% on Custom Web Design: Save 25% off of the total quote for a custom web design, blog design, or web site redesign. Limited to the first five respondents.
   Code: CINCOWEB08 Contact us for a quote.

photo credit: Downtown Pictures

I’ve wanted to get a toll free number for my business for a long time, but it takes me awhile to make a decision on that type of service.

I have to use Excel and create a Fishbein model to rank and rate all of the features.  There are so many options out there, it is hard to decide.  Some companies offer only the toll free service.  Some have complete VBX systems along with a toll free number and there are a multitude of options.

But what finally pushed me to make a decision had nothing to do with a toll free number, but faxes.

I have a fax machine, and I’ve occasionally made use of Efax’s free incoming fax service.  This has worked for me well so far. 

But last week I had to send a 10 page fax and the transmission kept failing.  I spent the entire day off and on trying to get it to go through.  I finally gave up on the fax machine and signed up for RingCentral’s service.

If I was just looking to send and receive faxes, I probably would have stuck with Efax; however, since I also was looking for a toll free number as well, I went with RingCentral.  It was only a few dollars more than Efax a month to have both and the basic RingCentral service includes a bare bones VBX system.  

A few of the other services I checked out were myFax and CallWave Fax.  Callwave has actually been around for a long time.  I used their incoming call notifier service back when I was on dial up and only had one phone line. 

Can you even imagine paying by the minute for internet access again?  Well, I guess you still do for WiFi, but it still amazing how the internet has changed how we operate in just the past decade.

Want to find out more about RingCentral?
Get your own Toll Free or Local Number with voicemail for as low as $9.99 per month

photo credit: archibald jude

A couple of months ago I was looking for domain names related to my business. Not that I’m not happy with my current one, it’s just that I was trying to get away from the email address that never ends.

So I hopped over to GoDaddy and started searching.

Already registered . . .

Already registered . . .

Already registered . . .

If you’ve ever searched for a domain name, you know just how frustrating it is to try to find one. Particularly when 90% of the domains you check out are registered by squatters.

On a fluke, I just happened to do a WHOIS look up on one that was already registered. The registrant was Network Solutions. I thought it was a little odd and was wondering if it was in a redemption period.

So I went to the Network Solutions web site and looked up the same domain. It was listed as available.

They were kiting the domain name I wanted!

Domain Kiting was coined in 2006 by Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com. What is it? There is a more detailed description on Bob Parson’s blog, but in a nutshell unethical registrars commandeer the use of domain names without paying for them.

So because Network Solutions had a hold on the domain name, I had to go through them to register it when I should have been able to go to the registrar of my choice. Their registration fee is $34.95 per year to GoDaddy.com’s $9.95.

Here are a few tips if you are looking for a domain name:

1. Use an ethical registrar to search for availability.
2. Look up the WHOIS registrant data. If it looks like it is held by a registrar, go to their web site and see if it is listed as available.
3. Visit the web site to see if there is an actual site up.
4. If you absolutely love the name, consider a domain buy agent to make an offer to buy the domain.

I was doing market research today on small businesses and noticed a few common mistakes when it came to to their web site.

1. They don’t keep control of their domain names.This is a big one. I have worked with so many people to try to get their domain name back that has either expired or they lost control of that I should start domain recovery services.

   Your domain name is the online doorway to your business. Without it, no one is going to be able to find you. Don’t have someone else manage your domain name. If you absolutely just don’t want to deal with it, make sure that you and your company are listed as the official registrant and list your web manager as the administrative, technical, or billing contact.

2. They don’t include their domain name on their other marketing materials. I’ve seen businesses spend thousands of dollars a month on a Yellow Page ad that doesn’t list their domain name. Billboards with a phone number, but no web site address.And my favorite, business cards with a url that goes nowhere. If you don’t have an actual web site up, don’t say that you do. It looks flaky.
3. Focusing on the pretty and ignoring the content. Of course everyone wants a site that looks good, however designing for print is not the same as designing for the web. How the graphics and content are displayed can determine how effective your web site is.One of the sites I found did not have one single character of spiderable text on the entire web site. Not one. No, I’m not kidding.

   When I first looked at it, I thought it was a bunch of images masquerading as a web site. Actually it would have been better if it had been. At least then there would have been some text and links in the image map.

   The entire site was Flash. It didn’t look like it at first because there was absolutely no interactivity other than calling up a new page when a menu item was clicked.

   If you’re reading this and don’t understand why any of the above matters, images are to search engines what paintings are to a blind person . . . absolutely irrelevant.

4. Not Keeping Their Web Site CurrentOne of the worst things you can do to your business’s credibility is having obviously outdated information on your web site: old phone numbers, old addresses, employees that moved on in the last century, “specials” dated from two years ago, and so on.
5. Making Wholesale Changes to Their Web Site

   This may seem like a contradiction to #4; however, you can do just as much damage to your rankings in the search engines by making changes to it as you can to your credibility by doing nothing at all.Believe me, I’ve done this before. I was updating and changing the structure on one of my hobby sites which ranked really well for certain terms. Since it was just a hobby site, I didn’t want to spend the time on updating it properly and redirecting the old pages to the new.

   So I just switched it . . . and the SERPs and traffic tanked for two months. It’s a very good example of what not to do.

   If you have pages on your business’s web site that rank well for certain terms, be very careful of making changes to the key components of the page.

   There are a lot of web solutions out there today that make it easy for a business owner to maintain a web site themselves. This is a plus in that it makes a site more affordable for some and can more accurately reflect the services and offerings of a business.

   The danger in this is that it also makes it easy to make major changes that can drastically affect rankings.

   One of my clients is very comfortable with updating their web site . . . which is great. They rank pretty well on several key words in their industry, but quite frankly I’m amazed that they rank at all because they are constantly changing page titles and categories. Those poor pages don’t have a chance to gain any authority at all before they are redone.

After homeownership, owning a business is one of the main components of the American Dream.

But what does it take to make that dream a reality?

Everyone has an “idea,” but very few act on it.

In order to bring that dream into a tangible form, it takes a defined vision, a plan of action, and perseverance to bring that plan about.

I was thinking about this today as I published an article on the Kingwood Connection about String Rings.

String Rings are the creation of Tina Mansfield, a mom and local resident who was fed up with the outright mean behavior that is becoming all too common. The rings are sterling silver and come with 10 different colors, each representing a different act of kindness.

The rings are meant to serve as a constant reminder to be kind to others. How cool is that?

There are a lot of other local residents doing amazing things as well.

Podlinez.com is a local company and is nominated for a Webby award in the Mobile: Mobile Marketplace and Services category. Be sure to vote for them.

Glitz & Glam, owned by Kristen Plaisance, is a hair salon and spa for girls with a unique business format. My girls love it. When they get their hair cut, they get to wear a hot pink plush robe, water or soda in a goblet, and top it off with a mini manicure. It is somewhat similar to Libby Lu in that birthday parties are offered as well, except for the girls don’t come out of the party looking like baby beauty contestant wannabe’s.

Klip Flops is a local business that designs flip flops with interchangeable straps. If you live up north in the snow and sleet, this may not seem like a big deal to you; however, we wear flip flops in Houston year round. Send a set to your favorite college student. They’ll love you for it.

Do you have a great idea for a business but need help with the plan? Contact me and let’s talk!

Do you have those stores that you hate going into because you know that you are going to end up spending way more money than you intended?

Blog content is free to the reader right? Well today my RSS feeds cost me.

The Friday Traffic Report had a post on the Big Word Project, which is essentially a tag site. Site owners can buy the tag with a link to their site at the cost of $1 per letter.

Developed by masters students Paddy Donnelly and Lee Munroe from the University of Ulster, the site launched on February 25, 2008. The idea sprang from a desire to create a project that utilized concepts in their Multi-Disciplinary Design program.

The “buy a space” concept gained prominence in 2005 with the success of the Million Dollar Homepage by Alex Tew who, like the Big Word Project founders, was a college student trying to raise money to pay tuition.

Since the launch of the Million Dollar Homepage numerous copycat sites have sprung up, although none have had the success of the original.

The difference between The Big Word Project and the majority of the tag sites out there is that the tag must be an actual word in the dictionary (no phrases) and the tag is priced by the letter.

Another nice little feature is the option to purchase the tagged word as a gift for a friend. I bought the word “Bows” for a friend who designs custom hair bows.

Along with a list of other words. I’ll warn you now, it gets addicting. You buy one word and then think of another that would be good to have.

Should you buy a word for your business? If a related word is available, I don’t think you can go wrong with getting it. Just be sure that you enter the url to link correctly, it can’t be changed later.

photo credit: ToastyKen

I think anyone who has an email address has received a fraudulent email stating that their Paypal or bank account needs to be updated.

The scammers have moved on to GoDaddy now. I recently received an email stating that the contact information on my GoDaddy account had been recently changed.

The poor grammar, misspellings and links that weren’t even masked gave it away immediately.

However, the thing to remember is that if you have a domain registered with them, GoDaddy will be sending you emails. Just don’t click on the email links. Go directly to web site to log in.

Here’s the reality. Phishers are successful because we are LAZY. Does it take more than 5 seconds and a couple of keystrokes to go to the web site in a browser? No. It is just more convenient to click on the link in the email.

Besides online banking services, Paypal, and GoDaddy, another prevalent scam is for ecards, particularly Hallmark.

As I said before, we are LAZY. Ecards are lame. Instead of, “Show you care to send the very best, ” it should be, “I forgot your birthday and don’t have time to buy a $1 card and so I’m sending an ecard instead.”

I’m not saying that you have to send a hardmade card, but at least send something tangible. If you don’t have time to pick a card out, you can always order it online at USPS.com and have it mailed out directly. You can even pick a gift card to be included.

But back to the original point of the post, remember . . . Don’t click on shady links in your emails.

Photo credit by How Can I Recycle This

Today Comscore Media Metrix released a report on the “Top 50 Web Rankings for March.” One highlight of the report was the list of the top gaining sites, which included the Yellow Book Network with 54 percent increase and an overall rank at #75.

Yellow Book hasn’t caught up to its two big competitors, Superpages.com (#26) and Yellowpages.com (#31), but it is gaining on them.

What does this mean to you as a small business owner? Well, the fact that all of the phone book directories are doing a huge push for their online services tells us that people don’t use phone books anymore to find service providers, they just Google it.

Even industries that historically have been heavy yellow page advertisers are now cutting back on expenditures because they aren’t getting the return they once did.

In an article for the World Chiropractic Organization titled “Quit Wasting Money on Yellow Page Advertising”, Peter Fernandez, D.C., author of “Yellow Page Advertising that Works for Chiropractic” and a business consultant for chiropractic offices, has completely changed his opinion on the medium:

Because of the poor performance of the Yellow Pages over the last 24 months, I have downsized the ads of over 90% of my clients. The low numbers of new patients generated didn’t warrant the cost of the ad(s).

In “When Yellow Pages Ads are NOT Worth the Price” Roger Eshaghian, DDS, provides a comprehensive overview of the pros and cons of Yellow Page advertising for the dental practitioner. He is a strong advocate of developing a marketing plan with a mix of mediums.

From my own experience, the flakiest inquiry calls I have received have been from people who have found my business through the phone book. While working with clients who track their customer sources, the consensus is that while the phone book ads do generate calls, for the most part there are a high percentage of tire-kickers and prospects are very price sensitive. There are always exceptions to this, but in general that is the case.

Should I Still Advertise in the Yellow Pages?

Here’s the thing, I can’t give you a blanket statement on whether or not yellow page advertising will work for your business. It really depends on your market niche, how effective your ad is, and the quality of the online presence of your competitors. As with any marketing effort, it is important to track incoming business to determine if you are getting enough return on your advertising dollar.

If you are in an area where very few of your competitors have a web site presence (for those of you who breathe blogs I know this is hard to believe, but it is true), you probably need to focus on your phone book ad.

However, if someone does a local search for a service provider and finds a few good options online, that three pound phone book probably won’t even be cracked open.

The Yellow Pages used to be what the internet is today, a compilation of information delivered to our door. However, the phone book is quickly becoming obsolete in an age of online directories, cell phones and 411, and PDA browsing.

What Not to Do

Don’t just get an ad because your competitor is doing it. Just because they’re doing it, it doesn’t mean that it is working for them.

Don’t just slap an ad together haphazardly. Make sure that it ties in with your other marketing efforts.

Don’t forget to include your web site domain.

Directory Ads That Work

Directory ads are much more effective if they are presented in the context of an existing relationship.

Location: One thing that annoys the heck out of me about the big online directory services is that the top results aren’t necessarily local, but who has paid the most to be listed. Also, if there are only two service providers in the area, they may be listed along with those in a completely different market area.

If there is an online business directory for your area, make sure that your business is listed.

Affiliation: I don’t use the phone book, but I do carry around the business directory for the Chamber of Commerce as well as a couple of other groups I am a member of. Sports leagues, civic groups, and neighborhood associations are also great places to promote your business. While they won’t all have actual directories, many have programs or some form of member listing available.

Google Business Center: Add your listing to the Google Business Center to be included in results on Google Search and Google Maps.

Ooops, sorry!

I’ve been adding quite a few feeds to my Netvibes account and I keep getting the “sorry our server has experienced an error” message.

Here are my other Netvibes gripes, I really don’t like the new glam version.  I think it is more resource intensive and just plain buggy.  I never had errors so frequently with the older version.

It is very slow to load the new feed preview when you add it from a blog.  It’s pretty quick when you are adding a new feed from the control panel though.

Also, I like to color code my feeds and I don’t like the new options.  The colors in the new version are more vibrant, which in itself isn’t bad.  However, as one of the color choices is red and the new item notifier displays in red, the foreground and background are the same.

What is Netvibes

The official description of Netvibes is a personal start page or a personal news aggregator.  But it is more than display your selection of news feeds.

I was first turned on to the possibilities of Netvibes after reading a post by Eric at Internet Duct Tape Marketing on how to create a blog maintenance page.  A wide variety of applications can be added to a Netvibes page through widgets.

In one browser window on Netvibes you can keep track of and moderate comments on your blog, see your latest Technorati rankings, keep an eye on the traffic of your competitor’s web sites, Twitter away, update your status on Facebook, just to name a few.

As of the date of this writing, there were 117,288 widgets, 904 universes, and 4,612 tabs listed on the Netvibes Ecosystem.

How to Use Netvibes for Your Business

One of my favorite uses for Netvibes is keeping my finger on specific topics.  By using Google Alerts, you can create a feed on any set of keywords you want.  This is designed to integrate with other Google services such as the Google Reader, Gmail, and iGoogle.

I prefer Netvibes.

Create the alert, view it, and then click on the RSS icon in the browser url bar to add it to your Netvibes page.

And why would you want to do this?

• Keep up-to-date on industry news
• Track mentions of your company online (both positive and negative)
• See what your competition is up to

Using Netvibes or a similar service is a great way to keep your online activities under one roof.

When I sold real estate I did most of my work from home because I absolutely hated going into the office. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my fellow agents, but I wasted enormous amounts of time helping people.

They thought I was a computer guru because I knew how to use the MLS program, could change the default printer on the computer, and could make a flyer in Publisher.

Who knew this was all that it took to be an expert?

Okay, so maybe “wasted” isn’t a good word. I helped them . . . they learned something . . . there is value in that.

But I spent time that should have been allocated towards working on my business to walking them through steps that would have been covered in a life enrichment course at the local community college.

Computer ? Internet

I was reminded of this today when I read a post on SEOmoz about someone who was trying to trademark the term “SEO.” “SEO” stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you’re not familiar with the industry, let’s just say that it’s the equivalent of someone trying to trademark “chocolate” in the candy industry.

What really got me was the description the guy’s business.

“Search Engine Optimization, Hosting, Webdesign, Software, Hosting, Domain Name, Software Development, All Computer Related Development and Marketing plus what is listed; Computer Software, Computer Hardware, “SEO” Letters to be trademarked in “All” Computer related areas.”

What exactly doesn’t he do?

First, it’s “Web Design” not “Webdesign.”

Second, computer hardware and software have nothing to do with SEO.

Computers are what the internet runs on.

The internet is the network of those resources.

The World Wide Web makes that network and those resources easily accessible to the average user.

SEO is a set of activities performed designed to make the target web site rank higher in search engine results.

That you know how to install a hard drive or configure a wireless router does not mean that you know anything about SEO . . . or hosting, or “Webdesign.”