Strategy is the key to success!

“First, you must begin at the beginning.” –Yoda

When it comes to marketing on and offline, you must first know yourself and your audience. A complete understanding of a business’s entire brand experience including: corporate culture, management techniques, sales practices, previous marketing patterns and employee comfort level with various media along with qualitative market data are essential base components in the planning process. At Unlimited Potential Marketing, we ask all of our prospective clients to complete a detailed questionnaire, which helps to answer those questions for our crack team of integrated marketing consultants. This information is the foundation for any comprehensive, strategic plan.

Once we have gathered data, we recommend an approach that we call a success sandwich, we educate and coach on the weaker components as we build a campaign around the company’s strengths—testing and measuring results the entire time. If this process sounds a little too intense to you, we have some solutions: Our Marketing Director, Katie Romano is willing to do a complimentary base assessment to the first 10 people who respond to this post. That’s option one. As an extra bonus, anyone who participates in this discussion will be eligible to receive $100 off our 33-days to Online Domination course: http://www.33daystosuccess.com/dominate .

You have everything to gain, and the time it takes to write a comment to lose… What is success to your business?

Social Media: Creating Connections

Tools are only as good as the wielder. Hand me the finest Black and Decker drill, and you’ll have a hole-ridden wall in seconds and it will take days for your new shelving unit to be installed. Hand that same drill to my Dad, a former contractor, and you’ll get the most beautiful shelving unit you have ever seen in a matter of an hour or less. That being said, your knowledge of the Internet, your market, and the amount of time you have available will determine which tool is best for you. Here are the top three Social Media Tools:

Blog: Formerly called a WebLog or “online journal” it is probably the most time consuming and rewarding of tools. As Ray Higdon says, “Content is King!” A keyword packed, regularly updated blog can really drive traffic to your site. The time commitment can be as little as 20-minutes a day, or as much as you want. You will need to have some basic technical understanding. Our “33-day” program (http://33daystosuccess.com/dominate). Deals extensively with keywords and blogs in nice, easy to understand video tutorials.

Twitter: “Tweeting” is perfect for pithy peeps that prefer to condense their messages and stay offline more than they are on. If you’re wondering what this “tweet” business is all about, checkout: http://twitter.com/rayhigdon and http://twitter.com/braddohack .

Facebook: The site, the myth, the network builder… There is so much information about facebook out there right now and so much is a time suck, because the people who wrote it only have 500 friends. When it comes to facebook, it’s go big or go home! You can have up to 5,000 friends, and you want all 5,000 to be strategic contacts. You also want to time your efforts so you don’t get engrossed in Farmtown. You also need a bit of patience to manage this tool, because they are always upgrading.

Tune in for the answer to our final “Top 3” questions tomorrow! And if you still have a burning question? Email our Marketing Director, Katie Romano at: Katie@unlimitedpotentialmarketing.com and visit our educational site: http://33daystsuccess.com/dominate .

What is more important for a local business: ranking high in Google or paying for yellow pages? The answer is threefold: Google, Google, and Google.

According to recent studies, most prospects search for businesses online. The Yellow Pages are quickly becoming a thing of the past, a strategic Internet marketing plan can create a higher return on investment than anything Yellow Pages can offer. In a previous blog entitled, Yellow Pages Fort Myers—Smash Hit or Trash It?” we address this in detail.

Over the next couple of days we will address additional questions from readers and seminar attendees including:

What is the best social networking site for a local business to be on?
What are the best strategies for a local business owner to market online?

These question and more will be answered over the next week in our blog entries, so stay tuned! To learn more about how you can dominate the internet, visit: http://33daystsuccess.com/dominate or email one of our experts at: Katie@unlimitedpotentialmarketing.com for a consultation.

Internet Marketing Answers

Recently, both Brad Dohack and Ray Higdon, the co-owners of Unlimited Potential Marketing have been making their way across the nation speaking about Internet Marketing. Whether in Southwest Florida, West Virginia, or Hawaii, the same questions keep coming up:

What is the best social networking site for a local business to be on?
What is more important for a local business, ranking high in google or paying for yellow pages?
What are the best strategies for a local business owner to market online?

These question and more will be answered over the next week in our blog entries, so stay tuned! To learn more about how you can dominate the internet, visit: http://33daystsuccess.com/dominate or email one of our experts at: Katie@unlimitedpotentialmarketing.com for a consultation.

The Best Tip for Marketing Locally

The best tip I can give you for marketing locally is represented by the acronym “DPD” and it stands for Define, Position, Dominate.

Define: Know thy self. More specifically, you must first define who you are, what you do, and what your special local are niche is. For instance, if you are one of 25 plumbers in a 20-mile radius what makes you different? Better? More unique? Are you able to re-pipe a house faster? Do you mandate all employees to wear tuxedos and refer to clients as “Ma’am” and “Sir”?

Positioning: How do you get on your prospects expert list? Just being different, better, or unique isn’t enough. You have to either be first in the prospects mind (an AdWords campaign is a great way to get there), or you need to leave a positive lasting impression. Ideally, you need to do both. If you specialize in re-piping and own the domain, “Yourtownrepipingplumber.com” you just might snag the prospect first. If every one of your plumbers is actually licensed as a plumber, not a tech, you may want to exploit that positive on your website and at the same time let your prospect know that not all of the 24 other plumbers have licensed personnel doing all of the jobs. Now you are first and the expert!

Dominate: Repeat steps one and two consistently, follow through with exceptional customer service, add networking at key local community organizations and publicly support the community in some way. Together these components will skyrocket your company to success and help you dominate your market share.

I had the most interesting conversation with a  friend last night who owns a clinic and real estate in Fort Myers.  Several weeks ago he set up his blog, here we are weeks later and he still hasn’t posted anything because of the fear factor. Worse yet, I know that he is not alone! Hence today’s article title, “Search Engine Optimization Fort Myers—Just Do It!”

You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain by blogging as a means of Search Engine Optimization! All it takes is a few minutes a day to drive traffic to your website through your blog.  Search Engines love content updates, so have fun with this step and educate while you update! You can even write all of your blogs at once and time them to release throughout the week.  How easy is that?!

Every legendary journey began with just one step, and so I am challenging everyone who reads this email to take a step.  For the next 7-days, take just 10 or 20 minutes a day and work on your blogs.  And when fear raises it’s little voice, ignore it and just do it!

Search Engine Optimization Fort Myers--Just Do It!

Website Design Florida

It is going to take a lot more than sun, sand and palm trees to attract the attention of travelers this coming “season” in Florida. Studies show that more than 85% of travelers will Google their way to their vacation plans and any services they might need while visiting. Hence, Unlimited Potential Marketing’s Website Design Florida Campaign.

Website Design Florida is our way of helping Florida businesses prepare their online businesses as well as their brick and mortar locations for season. First, we offer a complimentary consultation which includes an overview of each company’s entire marketing placement plan; website look, content and ranking. Once the assessment is complete, we are able to determine if the proverbial house has an addresses, is clean and ready to receive guests and how to properly “stage” a business’s site so that prospects stay and can be converted into buyers. Any Unlimited services that are contracted as a result of the initial consultation, will be offered at a 10% discount until October 15th, 2009 as part of this special program.

The Website Design Florida campaign is just one of the ways Unlimited Potential Marketing is hard at work helping to revive local businesses. To find out how your business can activate its Unlimited Potential, please email us at: Katie@unlimitedpotentialmarketing.com

Florida Weekly reported in its September 9-15 issue that “we may have hit bottom” on the real estate front. This is great news for an economy that is based largely on real estate and travel. However, what does this mean for local businesses and the state of Fort Myers Marketing campaigns?

It’s time to open the taps and let the funds flow. Now is the best time to start eating up the available market share with a targeted results-based marketing campaign like AdWords, a freshly redone optimized website, etc. The past two years have taught us all how important it is to truly understand the Fort Myers marketing arena, our audience, and what types of programs really provide a return on investment. The only caution I have for those looking to dive back into the Fort Myers Marketing pool is that while everything is on sale (which is super), not every medium is a fit for every business so no matter how great of a deal it sounds like it is, just buyer beware. And, when in doubt, call the team at Unlimited Potential; we do complimentary consultations!

The Yellow Pages Fort Myers may boast an impressive distribution but just what happens to the tinted tomes when they hit the front steps? Judging from the pile of decaying phonebooks littering the entrance ways to the humble abodes I pass on my way home, I would say, “Trash it!”

A friend of mine recently confided over dinner that he spends over $1200 a month for his business in the Yellow Pages Fort Myers and Cape Coral. This is a man with an MBA and two relatively successful businesses and what he shared with me is that he gets an underwhelming response—underwhelming as in less than one call a month! With an average sale of $65, you do the math. Furthermore, he commented that most people when they move to an area and are looking for his service hook up their internet first and then search for someone like him. No finger walking through the Yellow Pages Fort Myers or Cape Coral required.

By the time he was finished with his calamari, he was sharing how much he wanted to try an AdWords campaign. In times when budgets are leaning down, it makes sense to put money into advertising that only charges you when it works AND reaches your intended market.

Former reporter, published author, and CEO of Get Groovy, LLC, Katie Romano, has joined the team at Unlimited Potential Marketing as our Marketing Director. Her expertise with media planning and integrated public relations campaigns as well as her entrepreneurial background makes her a welcome addition to our Unlimited Potential staff. The addition of Katie is just one of the ways we are staying ahead of the curve in Fort Myers, Naples, and across the country as the #1 Internet Marketing Firm for businesses looking to dominate their market in the new millennium!