Comments on: Small Business Marketing Focus is Online

By: Greg Magnus

Greg Magnus — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:22:51 +0000

Great point JD – thanks for the comment.
To determine what referral network is best for your business, track the results and pay attention to your ROI – you are absolutely right.

We recommend investing in your “own” referral network before investing in the service providers. There are several online tactics that generate leads from people you know. The best “qualified” leads generally do come from business colleagues, customers/clients, vendors, social networks, etc.

By: JD

JD — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:45:57 +0000

Shouldn’t an article like this be more careful to make the distinction between referral networks like Angie’s List and Service Magic? In my experience, the better ROI is from qualified leads who contact my company directly, which is what I get from the former since the consumers pay for membership and are usually ready to make a purchase decision. With Service Magic I’m paying $20-50 each for unqualified leads and I’m still forced to make sales calls and compete with other companies in what amounts to a bidding war. If I don’t get the contract I’m still paying for as many leads as they send to my mailbox.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:03:27 +0000

Rolv,

Although your comment is border-line SPAM for your company, I agree with the concept and I approved the comment (without the obvious promotional link).

We do agree, however, that all emails sent to business colleagues and customers should include the appropriate signature lines and company info. If you “wrap” or enhance the email template with branded messages all the better. And, we encourage our clients to take advantage of the branding opportunity for their business.

Also, we promote our clients in our email signature lines here at AIM Custom Media (ie., current projects with a link to their websites as well as the standard links to our company website). We succeed when our clients succeed.

By: Rolv Heggenhougen

Rolv Heggenhougen — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:09:16 +0000

Companies seem to ignore the single largest online branding/advertising venue available: their own regular external emails. Why not use these emails to market the senders company?

You have a website.
You send emails.

Why not multiply your sales-staff by “wrapping” the regular email in an interactive letterhead?

No other marketing or advertising medium is as targeted as an email between people that know each other (as opposed to mass emails). These emails are always read and typically kept.