Beacon Marketing & Communication Strategies

Beacon Marketing offers online marketing services tailored to the size, location, and type of your business. Just because you build a great looking website does not mean they will come. Marketing is a critical piece to your success so we start by working closely with our clients to develop an organized online marketing plan.  The client’s online plan includes developing strategies and action plans that will help them reach their marketing goals.  Our Web Promotions include traffic reports to measure results which we review with the clients throughout the campaign.  We strive to assist clients with the best ROI (Return on Investment) possible.

Search Engine Submission & Optimization (SEO)

Beacon Marketing will submit your site to the top search engines including:

Search Engine Optimization: Beacon Marketing will optimize all of your pages with appropriate Meta Tags. Beacon will also create a Google SiteMap, and applicable Keyword Anchor Tags on each page. This service requires access to your site at your current hosting service via username and password.
Critical Step – Results within 1-2 months

Online Marketing – Local Listings:
Beacon Marketing will list your site on all the following local listing and directory sites: Google Maps, Yahoo Local, YellowBook.com, YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, InfoUSA.com, Localeze.com, TrueLocal, MSNlive and Yelp. Once registered, your local listings will help generate traffic to your site within a few weeks. Some sites may require an annual renewal, but generally this is a one-time listing fee.
Very Important – Results with in 2-6 weeks

Web Advertising – Google Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign:
Beacon will create (3) unique keyword PPC ads based on client’s product/service offering, location & preferences. Campaign minimum is $100 per month for (3) months, but after seeing initial results within first 30 days, client can opt to spend more to generate larger impact. Beacon will retain 20% of all PPC campaigns to pay for ongoing analysis and support. Clients will receive monthly Analytics Report.
Very Effective – Immediate Results

Organic Results via Link Building:
Beacon will spend 5 hours submitting online reviews and comments into related forums or blogs and will strive to get numerous links to your site from other sites. A links report will be provided (traffic from new links can be tracked if site is hosted by Beacon). Organic Search Results are the hardest to achieve and usually require ongoing efforts, but have the best long-term impact.
Very Effective – Results within 1-3 months

Online Press Release
Beacon Marketing will distribute one press release on client’s behalf using premier PR service. Press release will be distributed to many national and regional media outlets include Google News & Google Search, Yahoo News, Ask.com, eMediaWire, PRWeb, Topix News, and Pheedo Network.
Very Effective – Results 1-2 weeks

Online Marketing Classifieds Listing Service
Beacon Marketing will submit your service or products to several free classified listing sites such as Craig’s List, US Free Ads, and Domestic Sale on a weekly basis, for four weeks. Your ads will be keyword and geo-specific to your metro area. The ads serve as landing pages with a strong call to action, since many times these ads can outrank your site in search results.
Very Effective – Results 1-4 Weeks

While many marketers struggle with how to measure social media marketing return on investment, some businesses are finding at least one hard metric where their efforts have paid off—customer acquisition.

According to a February–March 2010 survey from office services firm Regus, smaller companies see the most success, with nearly half of small businesses around the world having acquired a customer through social networks.

“Organizations who have not yet ventured into the world of social networking may be missing out on sizeable business opportunities.” said Sande Golgart, vice president at Regus.

In January 2010, Hubspot found that more than 40% of companies using social media marketing had acquired a customer through the channel. The Regus survey, which was not limited to businesses using social marketing, suggests that number may be slowly climbing.

The Nielsen Company reported that, on average, the global consumer spends about 1 in every 4.5 minutes online on blogs or social networking sites. According to a report by market researcher Morpace, among US Facebook users time on Facebook rises to 1 in 3 minutes spent online.
Unsurprisingly, despite Facebook’s growing appeal to older users, 18- to 34-year-olds spend the most time on the site per week, at 8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online. Weekly Facebook time drops to 4.6 hours among users ages 55 and older, representing a lower proportion of that group’s average of 21.5 hours per week on the internet.
While the Morpace report showed a decline in both total time online and time on Facebook as incomes rose from less than $50,000 up to $100,000, affluent Facebook users making at least $100,000 annually spent the most time on the site and on the web as a whole.
In Q1 2010, comScore found that the visitors who spent the most time on Facebook also spent the most money online. Targeting users who not only spend large amounts of time on the site but also devote a large proportion of their total online activity to the social network could translate to going after the most lucrative portion of the audience.

Three-quarters of small businesses will increase their spending on e-mail marketing in 2010, while nearly seven in 10 will put more dollars toward social media, according to VerticalResponse data.

Almost all businesses with 500 or fewer employees will use e-mail marketing next year—just 3.8% said they would not. On the opposite side of the spectrum, more than 70% would not use TV or radio advertising.

Amid the popularity of e-mail and social media marketing, fewer small businesses told VerticalResponse they were dialing up their search efforts, and more than one-half would do no banner advertising in 2010.

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Data from ComScore, for March 2009, has Google at 63.7 percent of all Internet searches conducted in the United States. Yahoo is a distant second at 20.5 percent, with Microsoft at 8.3 percent, the Ask Network at 3.8 percent and AOL at 3.7 percent.

Google is in no danger. The research firm Hitwise submitted search engine traffic data for April that suggests Google’s lead in the market continues to widen. According to Hitwise, nearly 73 percent of all online searches in the U.S. in April were through Google. Yahoo clocked in for April at 16.27 percent, Microsoft’s MSN Search claimed 5.68 percent and Ask.com claimed 3.95 percent.

For anyone listening to all the doom and gloom pundits out there, it important to note that online marketing, specifically search engine advertising, is still growing and proving to be very successful. In the article linked below, you will see there was 21.4% growth in 2008 and 15% growth expected in 2009, despite the economic recession. This growth is a result of companies all across the US understanding the value of online marketing, some spending over $200,000 in search ads per month.

US Search Advertising Spending Growth, 2007-2013 (% change)

While US search advertising is still expected to grow 14.9% in 2009 to $12.3 billion, that rate is down from 21.4% in 2008, according to eMarketer. For 2010 through 2013, search ad spending growth estimates are choppy.

via US Search Ad Spending Falters? – eMarketer.

For anyone who missed our Online Marketing presentation/seminar at the Winthrop Chamber of Commerce in September 2008, or anyone who needs help with their marketing strategy, here is some important information about online marketing from Beacon Marketing. To view the full presentation click link at bottom of post.

• A 1993 report by Coopers & Lybrand and Business Science International concluded that “Businesses that maintain aggressive marketing programs during a recession outperform companies that rely more on cost cutting measures. A strong marketing program enables a firm to solidify its customer base, take business away from less aggressive competitors, and positions itself for future growth during the recovery.” Many additional research studies support that claim and we recommend you do the same.
• Despite the down economy and looming recession, online marketing is growing. US Internet advertising revenues for the first half of 2008 were $11.5 billion, reaching another half -year record that represents a 15.2 % increase over the first half of 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
• So what is online marketing? There are numerous options which can make it confusing but most of them fall within the following groups: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Email marketing, Affiliate and Link programs, Display Ads and Rich Media and Comparison Shopping. If you are still confused read our presentation at http://beaconmarketing.biz/map.
• There are many advantages to online marketing since it is often inexpensive, very effective in generating leads and sales, and can be tracked to determine ROI. There are also free options such as emailing clients, posting messages onto forums and blogs, and getting listed in free directories.
• Online Marketing is also very useful for small local businesses since you can geo-target your ads. For example, we’ve launched successful online Pay Per Click campaigns for a private chef, several types of contractors, a preschool, and a chiropractor.
• Despite the myriad of options, the first step of any online marketing campaign is a good web site. It must be easy to navigate, visually appealing, with a clear call to action (usually to order something or to make an appointment). But to dispel a online myth, “if you build it they will not come”. You must drive traffic to your site. You can choose from several options based on your budget and time.
• So don’t let the down economy get you down; beat the odds by going online.
• You can download the PPT presentation here or at:  Online Marketing Map Presentation