Trends in Marketing.February2 · Trends in Marketing | February 2016 | 3 Web Design | Graphic...

Trends in Marketing | February 2016 | 1

TRENDS inMARKETING Issue 2 | February 2016

Keeping Small and Medium Business Owners Informed on Trends in

TECHNOLOGY DESIGN MARKETING

Social Media...it is all HYPE?

Which E-mail option is right for you?

Examining The Entrance To Your Website...

the trends2016

2 | Trends in Marketing | February 2016

Web Design | Graphic Design | Content Marketing

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Publishers

Editorial and Art Director

Jillian Stone

Advertising Director

Charles H. Castano

DesignStone Mountain Solutions LLC

Contributing Authors

Alice Wanamaker | Carbon County Chamber

References

Cover Image Source | CanvaWeb Design/Hosting

On-Line Marketing

Search Engine Optimization

Social Media

Marketing Internet Analytics

Cloud Computing

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On-site/remote network support services

Network upgradesand performance optimization

Enterprise WiFi solutions

Serving professional corporations, school districts and municipalities

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Web Design | Graphic Design | Content Marketing

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Publishers

Editorial and Art DirectorJillian Stone

Advertising DirectorCharles H. Castano

DesignStone Mountain Solutions LLC

Contributing Authors Alice Wanamaker | Carbon County Chamber

ReferencesCover Image Source | Canva

Charles H. Castano Web and Cloud Services, LLC

Jillian StoneStone Mountain Solutions, LLC

Image Source: Canva.com

www.webandcloudservices.comhttp://smsolutionsco.comhttp://smsolutionsco.comhttp://www.carboncountychamber.org/http://canva.comhttp://canva.com

Publishers’ MessageWhat Does Marketing and Fashion Have in Common?

If you are a woman, you likely hesitate in getting rid of those clothes that you haven’tworn in years and years because in your mind you think “they may be popular again one day.” So you end up with drawers and closets filled with relics of the past. Platform shoes. Bell bottoms. Tie dye shirts. I know I’m dating my-self but I'll sacrifice the embarrassment in order to make a point. Fads die and fads return and in today’s business world a business owner can quickly become very frustrated trying to keep up with what is the best way to reach their target market.

This is the reason we have developed this magazine. With technology changing faster than you can say the 4-P’s (product, price, place, promotion), it can be a nightmare for business owners to understand whether they should use traditional marketing or digital marketing.

In additional to marketing, technology changes so fast it nearly leaves you frozen with uncertainty in knowing what tool to use for your business operations. It’s changing exponentially and faster than we can learn a new technology before the next new tool is out. Technology makes digital marketing possible so it's essential to understand how to use it to your advantage. To use it to your advantage you must understand it at a level that makes it possi-ble for you to put it to use in your business operations and marketing activity.

The average small business owner can’t keep up on this. But because keeping up on technology, design and mar-keting is our business, we can’t ignore it. That is why we developed this magazine. We have to do the work because keeping our business depends on it. So we thought, why not share what we learn with our subscribers and clients?

If you are a business owner in another type of industry other than design and technology, you likely don’t have the time to keep up because you are busy doing what you do best. So we are providing this service for you. We hope you will find it an invaluable resource to help you stay abreast of what you need to do to effectively market your business in our highly competitive world.

Wishing you a highly successful business in 2016! -- Jillian Stone | Stone Mountain Solutions, LLC


http://smsolutionsco.com


MARKETINGBusiness trends shaping your future success.

February 2016 Contents

Publisher’s Message 4

Trends in Technology 6Which E-Mail Option is Right for You?

Trends in Design 8Examining the Entrance to Your Business Website...Your Home Page

Trends in Marketing 11Social Media...Is it All Hype or is it Useful to YourMarketing Activities?

Coming Attractions 14

To Subscribe 16

MARKETINGTRENDS in


by Charles H. Castano | Web and Cloud Services, LLC

Trends in Technology

Which E-mail option is right for you?Essentially, you have two options, which we will further segment to analyze diff erences and consid-er pros and cons.

Option 1. Free web based E-mail:

• G-mail, Yahoo, AOL, etc• Free mail with your domain name through

G-mail or your web hosting service

Option 2. Dedicated E-mail hosting either in-house or web based• Microsoft Exchange Server• Cloud based Exchange

Option 1

If you own a web site with your own domain name, chances are the web hosting company you are us-ing off ers free e-mail accounts. You can access your mail through web mail from any browser with an internet connection. If you prefer to use a program on your computer such as Outlook or Th underbird, you have to confi gure the mail account on that pro-gram and pull the mail from the mail server using one of two options: POP3 or IMAP. Th is also applies to accessing your mail on your phone. IMAP is pref-erable to POP3; this is why: POP3 typically down-load mail to your PC and deletes it from the mail server (although the mail client on your PC can be set up to let mail remain on the server). If you do NOT set up this option, when you look for mail on another device (like your phone), nothing will be there, because your other device deleted it from the server.

IMAP allows you to log into diff erent email clients (webmail, phone, laptop, etc.) and view the same emails, since the emails are kept on remote email servers until you delete them.

IMAP has limitations. It stores emails on a remote mail server, so the hosting service may impose limited mail-box sizes. Additionally, IMAP does not sync your calen-dars, contacts, notes, tasks, nor does it easily provide for sharing these important tools.

Popular services such as Google, Yahoo and AOL as well as most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) work much the same. With these services, you'd have an E-mail address that ends in the provider's domain name, such as [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected].

Google has the functionality to set up your domain name and use their servers. To do this, you fi rst need to set up a G-mail account. Let's say Bob owns widget.com. He would fi rst get an E-mail from Google such as [email protected]. Once that's done, he would have the ability to confi gure [email protected] to go through Google.

Option 2

Currently, the most popular hosting option for busi-nesses is Microsoft Exchange. Th ere are other options including Linux based mail hosting and others.

Until not long ago, many small businesses relied on in-house hosted Exchange. Exchange is Microsoft ’s E-mail hosting soft ware. It is installed on a local Server in-house, or can be hosted on the cloud.

An in-house hosted environment requires you have

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a server in your offi ce that runs Microsoft Exchange. With the advent of cloud computing, Microsoft devel-oped a very eff ective marketing campaign to promote their Offi ce 365 product based on cloud Exchange. (Other companies provide cloud Exchange services, though Microsoft is by far the most popular, as they developed Exchange in the fi rst place).

Using Exchange, you are not restricted to POP3 or IMAP access to your mail. Th is allows you to be more effi cient and productive in your business. With an Ex-change service, you can synchronize your data any-where you access it in real time. Th at is, you can have your mail (all of it), calendar, contacts, tasks, notes on the cloud or (through Outlook web) in your in-house Exchange Server, at your desktop, your laptop, your phone, etc. all synchronized.

In addition, you can easily share any of these items. For instance, you could give your assistant access to your calendar, or perhaps you would want to set up a shared offi ce calendar. As changes or updates are made to your shared calendars, all devices will refl ect those Offi ce 365 has a number of added benefi ts that are very useful for business purposes including One Drive to put your fi les on the cloud for access anywhere, huge E-mail and attachment size limits, cloud archival ofmail, automatic backup of yourmail, and much more.

Option 1 | Pros and Cons

Pros:

It's free!

Cons:

1. Your mail is NOT synchronized across devices. Ifyou confi gure a mail client on your phone and yourcomputers, you will not have access to all the same in-formation on all devices. Th at is, you'll see the inbox,sent items (if you confi gure it as an IMAP service); butwhat about other folders, deleted items, contacts, cal-endars, tasks, notes? Th ese will not all be the same onall the devices you possess.

2. You are responsible for ensuring your mail is backedup, and you are responsible for getting it to work prop-erly. Typically, the service providers will give you lim-ited support for these services.

3. If you have a web site, and you are using a g-mail oryahoo email address, there is no consistency. It is not“professional”. (Continued on next page...)

Image Source: Creative Commons

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TRENDSin

Design

Option 2 | Pros and Cons

Pros:

1.Everything is synchronized, providing a consistentuser experience from device to device.

2. If you use Microsoft cloud hosted Exchange orOffi ce 365, you have access to world class support.Th ey respond quickly, and follow up assisting youthrough the process until the issue is resolved.

a. Th e Microsoft cloud hosted services in-clude automatic backup of your information

Cons:

1. It's not free.

a. If you choose to purchase an ExchangeServer, you have the up-front cost which you have to depreciate over time. You also have support costs to set up, confi gure and maintain the server. Th is in-cludes backups, updates and so on.

b. Security is always a concern. When youhave an in-house mail server, you have to open ports on your Firewall, to access your mail in and out of the offi ce. Hackers know this and are out there look-ing for victims.

c. If you choose to opt for cloud based Ex-change, you will pay a monthly (or annual) fee per e-mail box with a 12 month contract. Th is is now anexpense rather than an asset. Your accountant canexplain the pros and cons of expensing an item rath-er than depreciating it.

To sum up, for one person shops with limited re-sources, Option 1 may be a solution. For businesses, the functionality of Exchange makes everyone more effi cient and productive.

I’m Charles H. Castano with Web and Cloud Ser-vice, LLC

Marketing Your Service Website Like a Retailer

Part 1

Examining the Entrance to Your

Website...

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You need to think of your home page as the most important page of all. The home page is the entry way into your “store” and is the very fi st impression people get of your business. It’s your virtual recep-tionist so it needs to be friendly, helpful, and educa-tional and pave the way into the other departments of your business. Your home page should lead the visitor through the corridors of your castle where you keep all the treasures you offer. But if the tour guide or receptionist isn’t doing their job, the customers will find themselves at a dead end.

Your Window DisplayWhen you walk through the malls, what att acts you to a store? Usually, the window display. If a retail-er is a gourmet store, you will see tantalizing dis-plays of special gourmet items; usually the items that are most interesting or tempting. If the store is a record store, the window display will boast the latest recordings from the most popular artists. Or if you are a jewelry store, you will find the most beautiful, sparkling diamonds that will most cer-tainly grab the attention of the most any woman.

Well, what if you considered that when you are de-veloping and managing your website. Are you changing your homepage each month to follow holidays? Are you capitalizing on any opportunity to generate new interest in how you are promoting your prod-uct? If you see the same window displays each time you walk the mall you will be less likely to be attracted to what the retailers are selling. Think about it…in this digital age where content is delivered in massive quantities there is almost nothing new under the sun. So to get people excited in today’s environment, you need to give people a new and different experience.

Last month in my Trends in Design article discussed how a website is a crucial piece of real estate for a service business. Each month we will be going more into depth about each aspect of your website to help you understand the importance of staying in touch with the trends in web design. Competition is tough for small and medium businesses and you need to be sure you’re doing all you can to remain in the competition Our goal with Trends in Marketing Magazine is help you stay on top of the trends that exist in our three target areas. So this month, my goal is to inform you about what I see as the trends in web design and how you can apply it to your website particularly if you have a service business.

Your ReceptionistThink about what happens when you visit a brick and mortar business. A good business will first have a friendly and knowledgeable receptionist or custom-er service greeter to direct you to the right person or aisle. When you go into the business lobby or enter the front door, you need to feel welcome and feel assured that this is the place where you can find what you’re looking for.

The Home PageImage Source: Canva

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When a particular website trend develops, you see the same style everywhere. Once a trend is started, every-one jumps on the bandwagon. But that is nothing new is it? Didn’t your mother tell you to be an individual and not to follow what everyone else does? So I believe the most important way to excite your visitors in going through your website is to be different. There are elements that need to be on a good home page but does the design have to be the same as everyone else has? I say NO!

Elements of a Well Designed Home PageThis article isn’t about how to help you follow the trends and create a look like everyone else has. It’s about how to apply the elements that need to be there and stil be unique. So in studying what are the best elements for web design to create the best user experience I have come up with a list of what’s important…as I see it.

1. Keep your homepage simple. It should tell the visitor exactly what you do and what benefits you can provide for them in a few words. No one reads a lot of content until they are ready to learn more. Grab their interest first, then give them lots of content to help them make a decision.

2. Make it exciting on a regular basis. Don’t keep the same homepage up for the entire year without changing it. Understand your audience and mix it up to give them an experience each time they load your page.

3. Page load. It should be fast! Visitors don’t want to wait for the page to load. We don’t have time! Time is such a short commodity now (why is that when we have so many tools to speed up our work load?). There are many tools that can speed up your website and utilizing them can make the difference between a visitor moving through your website or leaving it before it loads.

4. Call to action. What do you want your visitor to do now that they accessed your homepage? A retail store might have a sign that says “Welcome” or “Come on in” or even “Sale Today!” Tell your visitors what you want them to do next now that they are looking in your “window”. On my own home page I have a call to ac-tion for them to simply scroll down to learn more. Then I present all the most important goodies right there on the first page.

5. Image or Video. A great way to make your homepage more engaging is to provide an appropri-ate image (preferably a custom photo of you or your company), a slideshow or a video. Visual representa-tions of what you do versus text only create a more satisfying experience for the user. Remember the old saying…”one picture is worth a thousand words.”

6. Testimonials. Tell your visitors what other peo-ple think about your services with a link to your testi-monial page or testimonials right on the home page.

7. Free resources. Another great element to add to your home page is an offer for them to download a free resource. This could be in the form of a white pa-per, an assessment, or maybe an eBook that you wrote or recommend. This gives them the ability to learn more about you which often leads to purchases.

8. Contact us. Of course the most important ele-ment is to make it very easy for them to know how to contact you. Either through a simple contact form or a button with a link to a contact form or your phone number highly visible in your header.

Creating your home page strategically is the first step to get your window shoppers to take their first step into your virtual store. Whether it be an actual e-commerce site or strictly a service or consultant business website…remember your website’s home page is your window display. Use it like a retailer.

Social Media


TRENDS in MARKETING

Is it HYPE or Can it REALLY Help your Business?By Jillian Stone | Stone Mountain Solutions, LLC

I talk to so many professionals and Small and Medium Business (SMB) owners who don’t even want to discuss the value of using social media for their marketing. They get a terrified look on their faces at the thought of setting up social media pages and maintaining them. It overwhelms many. Some don’t know what types of networks to use. Some simply don’t know how to use it to their advantage. And others wonder if there IS an advantage to it.

My goal with this article is to examine the social media monster to help you decide if it is right for your business. I hope to provide understanding about 1) how to use it, 2) what are the advantages anddisadvantages and 3) what forms of socialnetworking will be right for the average SMB owneror practitioner.

How to Use Social MediaFirst of all, it is virtually impossible to get a handle on the vast number of social media platforms there are in the world which is where I wanted to start with in this article. But there is no shortage on information on how to use social media to grow your business.

How do you sift it all out? If there is a plethora of information available, how do you know who to trust to give you the right information? That is a really good question. This question embodies why we started this magazine.

For someone who seems to have an insatiable need to "know things” it frustrates me to not have a clear handle on what I want to know about social media. But what I can do is point you in the direction of who I consider some of the most knowledgeable resources in the world of social media. This is not by any means an exhaustive list, but these resources will give you excellent information on how to best use social media in more detail than I have the space to outline here. The information available is that vast.

In a nutshell, if you want to consider using social media to reach your target market the best place to start is to examine where your target market resides…not physically, but where they reside in the virtual world of social media.

LinkedIn

If you are a B2B (Business to Business) business owner LinkedIn is the best source to connect with your target market. On LinkedIn you will create a personal profile and a company page and then begin the process of con-necting with other businesses with whom you want to do business. Here is a great resource to explain a strategy for connecting with your target markets on LinkedIn.

Social Media

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FacebookIf you are a B2C (Business to Consumers) business owner, then Facebook will be the best network for you. Alice Wanamaker, the Director of Member Relations at the Carbon Chamber & Economic Development Corp. in Lehighton, Pennsylvania shares her knowledge in her article Using Facebook for Business to Benefit Your Business where she outlines the steps for getting started with using Facebook as a marketing tool.

Alice writes:

1. Set up your page

2. Identify your audience

3. Create compelling content

4. Advertise

5. Measure and adjust (www.facebook.com/business/overview)

Alice states that the algorithm Facebook uses to organi-cally reach your followers once was 16% of your follow-ers and has now dropped to less than 3%. She says to in-crease your views you need likes and shares which can be earned with strategic and compelling content. Here is how she suggests you strategically post your content on Facebook.

1. Carve out time each week to schedule your Face-book posts. Set aside about 15-30 minutes once a weekand schedule seven full days of Facebook interactions. Ifyou get caught up in ordering supplies or working theregister you know that your Facebook efforts are still go-ing strong.

2. Start by conversing with your audience. TheFacebook gnomes will flag your salesy post and limityour audience if you have words like ORDER NOW orCALL TODAY in every post. Instead, get personal andconnect with your audience with authentic emotions andconversational language. “We just tried the first batch ofmashed potatoes made with locally grown potatoes andcouldn’t get enough, these will not last."

3. Make sure you are interacting with youraudience. When someone likes, shares orcomments on a post–thank them or interact bycommenting back. Not only do you have themengaged but their friends may now see your post!

4. Post pictures and videos! This is true for allmarketing efforts but especially on social medialike Facebook, remember that people want to seepictures of kids, animals and people they can relateto.

5. Be consistent! Studies suggest that it cantake anywhere from five to twenty touches before aprospect turns into a customer, with the averagebeing seven. Be sure to send a consistent messageand on a regular basis.

Article originally published in the Times News on February 6, 2016

Twitter

You might be wondering where does Twitter stand in the mix? Does Twitter work best for B2B or B2C? When you take a look at the types of companies that use Twitter, it’s easy to see that Twitter is highly effective for businesses. Companies, governments, personalities and organizations all use Twitter. Considering CNN, New York Times, Google, and Donald Trump all use Twitter, it’s a safe bet to say that Twitter is useful for all businesses whether B2B or B2C.

http://www.tnonline.com/2016/feb/06/using-facebook-benefit-your-businesshttp://www.carboncountychamber.org/https://pixabay.com/en/hashtag-facebook-social-networks-1120301/


1. Social Media is an inexpensive means of ad-vertising. Setting up profiles and using the platformsare free unless you choose to get the paid versions ortake advantage of the paid advertising opportunitiessuch as Pay-Per-Click.

2. Because of the ability to share on social me-dia, your content can end up anywhere and in front ofeyes that you didn’t target but could use your services.For example, the public lists that I mentioned earlier.

3. Social media levels the playing field for SMBowners and is great advantage to be able to compete(somewhat) with the larger companies for minimumfinancial investment.

Regarding disadvantages:

1. Social media takes up a lot of time. Howev-er, there are tools that can speed up the process and asocial media consultant can help you get startedand show you how to streamline the process so whenyou’re ready, you can handle it yourself.

2. If you don’t post regularly, your posts will getlost in the shuffle. I try to post between 2-3 times aday and I schedule the posts at the beginning of theweek to go out periodically through the week.

3. Keeping up on the posts and responding tolikes, retweets, direct messages can be time consumingbut there are applications for that as well. For exam-ple, Tweet Jukebox is a great way to automate responsesand interactions. Of course this can only be used forTwitter.

4. There is also risk associated with social media.Disgruntled employees or customers can use the mediato post unfavorable things about your business so mon-itoring social media is essential so you can respond andmanage your reputation. Here is a good article on therisks of social media

I hope this article has been useful to you to help you understand whether or not social media can be bene-fic al to your business. Finally, I included some really useful tools to help you better understand using social media for your business. Enjoy!

Social Media Examiner Industry Report

Pew Research social networking fact sheet

Pew Research Social Media Update

Note: The Pew Research updates are from 2014.

Learning how to use Twitter is pretty simple. Here is a link that will give you the building blocks of how to set up Twitter and use it to your advantage. Personally, I love Twitter and find it the more responsive in terms of people sharing my content than any of the other platforms. In fact, this magazine was already included in two List.ly online curating newspapers and included on eight public lists in just one month.

What does being including on a list mean to your brand? Social Media Examiner (which by the way is a great resource for anything that has to do with social media) says using lists is a great way to in-crease your credibility of your brand. Once you’re added to a list it means people are noticing you. It’s a really good way to measure the influence you have in social media.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media

As with most anything related to business, there are advantages, disadvantages and risks involved in using social media for your business.

Let’s look at the positive first

http://www.cmodigitalforum.com/2016/01/08/essential-guide-minimizing-legal-risks-social-media-marketing/


Coming up inMarch IssueTrends in TechnologyUpgrading to Windows 10

Trends in DesignIs Your Website Your Showcase?

Marketing Your Service Business Like a Retailer | Part 2

Part 2 will focus on the overall design of the website. This is where the power of visual does its most important work. We will focus on the use of color, space, image placement, symmetry, flow and continuity

in drawing your customers and keeping your customers walking through your gallery of services.

Trends in MarketingContent Marketing

Is Content Still King?

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