For many of us, the cell phone has become an indispensable tool to conduct business, communicate, find information and entertain ourselves.

The year is wrapping up fast, and next year’s marketing trends are quickly taking shape. Some were much-hyped in 2011, but struggled to find their footing as cautious businesses dipped a toe into these new streams. Others, like social media and video, have been building momentum for a while.

1. Social Media

2. Mobile Marketing

3. Geo-Targeting and Location-Based Marketing

4. Video Moves Downstream

5. Monitoring Online Business Reputations

Insight Marketing tips to grow your newsletter list

Before you pay anyone for a “list” of potential newsletter subscribers, you should absolutely attempt to capture these names directly. Why not? It’s free, and you know that purchased list will cost you a bundle in cash, time, and credibility once the spambots are linked back to you.

If you build it, they will come.

This doesn’t apply to fields of dreams, but also to great subscription lists filled with names and emails that are specifically applicable to your business.

The most effective way obtain a good list is to build it yourself. And it all starts with good content. If you build it, they will come. Here’s how:

Quick, Easy Tips to Grow Subscriber Lists

1. Practical, useful, original content. You will never collect email addresses just because you provide a newsletter “free of charge.” You must first provide content worthy of their time, giving readers a reason to click, stay, and subscribe. Provide unique and valuable information first and foremost.

2. Make it easy. Add a subscription form to every page of your website, and make it easy to find. Place in the same spot on every page, clearly identified. Request minimal information: the more details you ask for, the less likely you are to capture the email address.

3. Provide a sample newsletter. Future subscribers should be able to review your newsletter before they sign up. The free sample to a free newsletter is necessary to secure capturing the email address.

4. Archive past newsletters. Archive past newsletters to build credibility as an authority in your field, while providing readers access to past information. In addition, articles with good SEO techniques can provide additional web traffic.

5. Network with publishers. Publishers of newsletters and/or print articles can provide valuable links, content, and subscribers to your own publication. This is an absolute win-win, with both of you will build your lists faster.

6. Give away opt-in bonuses. Create an opt-in bonus in return for subscribing. An ebook or PDF report, webinar, podcast, or downloadable or web-based software are great options to entice new subscribers, and builds credibility as well. Do not limit opt-ins to new subscribers; if you systematically pass on various freebies, subscribers are unlikely to leave.

7. Ask readers to share. Word of mouth is viral. If a subscriber finds your content to be informative, they will pass your newsletter to friends. This can be a good source of new subscribers.

8. Blog consistently. Blogging creates great dialogue with potential customers, and creates nice synergy with email marketing. Be sure to include a newsletter sign-up form on each blog page.

9. Comment. Post valuable comments on related blogs. In most cases, comments are posted with a link back to your site. This is an easy way to generate new traffic and subscribers.

10. Allow reprints. Websites and publishers actively look for high-quality content. Share yours, as long as it’s not modified in any way. With each reprint, your audience and exposure grows leading to new subscribers, traffic and links.

11. Include “Sign Up” button. Use a button or link within your newsletter providing a text link to your subscription page. Readers will forward newsletters to others, or share online, and the “sign-up” button or link will give others an immediate manner to opt-in.

12. Add a squeeze page. A squeeze page is a mini-sales letter for your newsletter or opt-in bonus, directly building your list. Use a powerful headline and valuable benefits to tease subscribers to sign up. Once created, a service such as WordTracker can find hundreds of targeted keywords, and then you can utilize pay-per-click from Google, MSN and Yahoo.

13. Testimonials mandatory. Put strong testimonials on your squeeze page in any format, video is most believable. To increase credibility, include full names, locations and/or live urls.

14. Establish a Privacy Policy. Let readers know without doubt you will never share their contact information. Establish a Privacy Policy web page, and provide a link to that page below every opt-in form.

Choose your business, product or service name wisely!

Talk about pressure: choosing the name for your company, key product, or service, may in fact be the most important marketing decision you make. Don’t take this task lightly!

Many businesses, unfortunately, put little thought into this all-important decision, settling for names that do little to enhance image or reputation. And it’s not simply small start-ups that fail at this responsibility; in fact, many large, sophisticated corporations are equally guilty of settling on generic, nondescript names.

3 Simple Rules for naming your business, product or brand

Here are 3 simple rules that will help you develop an effective name for your business, product or brand. These are guidelines, rather than hard and fast rules. And if you find a name that you really love, by all means, trust your instincts and go with it. There are always successful exceptions to every rule.

Rule 1. Avoid generic sounding names

If it sounds cliché, it is cliché, so don’t use it. Very often, businesses choose names that are generic, non-descript and overused. Avoid using words like the following:

• General
• Consolidated
• International
• Associates
• Universal
• World-Wide

Companies think that using these terms they will position their company as large, long established and stable, but these traits are too common and do little to differentiate itself from the competition. Which company has a stronger brand image: General Tire or Michelin?

Rule 2. Avoid initials or acronyms

Another common error is relying on initials and acronyms. This is epidemic among business today, and I can’t understand why business partners would use their initials to form the company name – other than driven more by personal ego and than sound business tactics. Not a smart move.

If you call your company the SMC Corporation, what are you communicating to your customers? Nothing! When you use initials, you lose the opportunity to quickly communicate key business elements to your customer when they first encounter your company. Don’t make it harder on your customers to know who you are!

Rule 3. Avoid names with too many words

During the 1980s, American Express wanted to expand into the brokerage services business – it purchased Shearson Loeb Rhoades and Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, calling the new firm Shearson Lehman American Express. Phew! Quite a mouthful, and an example of how large, sophisticated companies make naming errors. The resulting merger so thoroughly confused customers that the brokerage business was ultimately sold to Primerica, and the firm again became known as good old American Express.

If you already have a long name, think about abbreviating or shortening it. International Business Machines, which violates Rule #1 and Rule #3, became simply known as IBM (which happens to violate Rule #2). This goes to show that there are always successful exceptions to these rules when the company is exceptional at its core business and creates a powerful brand.

There are many aspects to consider before launching your business into the social media world of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you take the time to establish to really understand your social media goals and develop a strategic plan to achieve these goals, your plunge into the waters of social media will be much more successful.  Marketing strategist Lee Odden first addressed this in a great post on TopRankBlog, and it’s a post worth reading.

Here are the highlights:

Common questions asked by small businesses considering a Social Media Strategy:

“Should we develop a strategy first before engaging?”

“Should we experiment or develop a strategy as we go?”

“Is it okay to ask customers if they’d like to buy directly on social networks?”

To set up the framework for a successful social media marketing program, consider these suggestions prior to jumping in:

• Identify your business goals and how these are to be measured.

• Develop an approach and methodology to use in your Social Media program. This is essential for planning, implementation, accountability and measurement of success.

Setting Social Media Goals, Then Listening in on Conversations

The goals set for your specific business will lead you to the appropriate social media venue for success. For example, if you want to create conversations with your customers, this would require a different network than developing sales leads. Having a clear understanding of your customer needs and business goals will lead to the perfect social media platform (ie: Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube, or Twitter), or perhaps a combination of these social media tactics.

Listen before leaping.

Once you develop social media goals, research each network and listen to the conversations happening there. You will quickly find out where your business belongs, and where you don’t. This small amount of research will provide valuable insights each social media platform, and where your customers are most engaged.

While I strongly recommend formulating a specific, permanent strategy, doing so shouldn’t deter you from diving into social media, especially if you are employed at a large corporation or organization. Trying to get an overarching social media strategy through layers of bureaucracy, can delay and even kill its implementation.

Social Media by its very nature is a fluid, ephemeral media in which you can experiment with different tactics to see which resonates with your audience. Once colleagues begin to see the fruits of your labor, you’re more apt to gain consensus and supporting data to support your strategy, creating momentum within your organization and getting the naysayers to quickly jump on board.

Chances are, at some point or another, you’ve received an email from a search engine optimization (SEO) firm that promises to submit your website to thousands of search engines or hundreds of directories promising higher rankings, more visitors, more clicks.

If you fall for this ploy, you’ll find yourself out hundreds of dollars with no real value in return.

The truth is that there are only three major search engines: Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Any other site that calls itself a search engine simply returns results from one of the big three, so submitting your company website to any of these other so called “search engines” is a waste of your valuable time.

When to Submit Your Website to Google, Yahoo or Bing

You may want to submit your website to the major search engines if it is brand new, and you want your website to be included in search results as soon as possible. Honestly, this is really not necessary – and many argue that it won’t speed up the process.

The major search engines do a pretty good job of finding new content fairly quickly, and your website will soon be listed in a few days – even if you never officially submit your site to a search engine.

Search engines use programs called robots or spiders to crawl the internet looking for new content. These spiders follow links from one web page to another, and from one website to another, with complex algorithms.  When the spider encounters new content, a new page, new photograph, or a new site, it indexes the information immediately.

In other words, it records the new content and its location so when someone does a search including keywords or phrases that matches the content on that particular web page or site, that specific URL address, title and description will appear in the search results.

And your site will appear on Google, Bing, and Yahoo whether you officially submit it or not, so please – please! – don’t waste valuable time, effort, or dollars succumbing to scrupulous ploys and promises of what you can already get for free.

Who really does marketing? Can "they" do it all?

I’m a bit annoyed that all the various companies involved in marketing say, a little too assertively, that they “do marketing.” If that sounds confusing well it’s understandable.

Marketing is such a broad term and encompasses such a multitude of services and skill sets that for most business people, someone saying they “do marketing” can be as confusing as a Chinese menu. “Marketing” is a term applied to high-level strategic planning and branding as well as getting trade show posters printed at Kinkos.

Add to this confusion the plethora of marketing, advertising and promotional tools available to promote your business, and the task of marketing your company in an effective manner can quickly become overwhelming

For example, here is a partial list of marketing and advertising tools available:

• Advertising: TV, Radio, Cable, Magazines, Newspaper, Classified, Co-Op Advertising, Yellow Pages
• Direct Marketing: Direct Mail, Telemarketing, Email Marketing, Newsletters
• Marketing Communications: Brochures, Sales Sheets, Presentation Folders
• Advertising Specialties: Promotional Items
• Online Marketing: Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click, Website Development, Directories, Blogs, Banner Advertising
• Public Relations: Press Releases, Articles, Event Marketing
• Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogs

With such a variety of marketing avenues to take, it’s difficult for a client to decipher the most appropriate tools to use when promoting their business. Business owners often meet people who claim to do marketing, often proposing rudimentary, rather than a comprehensive marketing program, invariably tailored to their particular expertise.

For example, many advertising agencies will say they can develop a comprehensive marketing plan and strategy, but that’s not their area of expertise. And, without a doubt, advertising will be the cornerstone of their marketing recommendations, whether it’s the most effective tool to promote your specific business or not.

Marketing is not unlike seeking medical advice…

If you have a back problem and see orthopedic surgeon, she will recommend surgery because this is how she was trained to fix back problems. If you go to a chiropractor, he will conclude you’re out of alignment and suggest a regular regimen of adjustments. And a physical therapist will discern certain muscles weaker than others, causing an imbalance in your core and recommend strengthening and conditioning.

Marketing is not unlike seeking construction advice…

It’s the same process as if building a home. You’re not going to hire a plumber to design your house – you’re going to hire an architect. And the same goes for your marketing, don’t hire your public relations firm to produce a strategic marketing plan.

It’s not easy obtaining appropriate advice from a specialist in one profession, and the same is true with marketing.

It’s hard to get objective advice where there isn’t a self-serving interest.

What you really need is a marketing consultant who has the training and experience to develop an effective marketing program specific for your individual business goals and objectives.

You’ve just registered a great new domain for you business,

www.yourgreatdomain.com, and as you’re ready to checkout, you’re offered terrific  deals on yourgreatdomain.net, yourgreatdomain.biz, yourgreatdomain.info, yourgreatdomain.co, etcetera, as well as cheap hosting to go with them.

For a few hundred bucks, you’re the proud owner of a dozen domains and hosting.

Now what should you do with all these sites?

Don't cut & paste content onto multiple domains and sub-domains.

If you believe simply duplicating your current website and putting the same content up on these new domains you will dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs) for your keywords and search phrases, you will be sadly mistaken!

The major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing frown upon having multiple sites with essentially the same content. In fact, they will think you are attempting to cheat: deceiving the search engines and gaming the system. If they do, there are severe repercussions from the search engine police.

How severe?

Your site will be “black-balled” and not appear in any search results, except for your specific business name or URL.

Obviously, this will be the exact opposite of your objective, and will damage any business big-time if you rely extensively on search engines to deliver traffic to your website. Getting on the bad side of search engines is bad for business.

There are times when using a new domain or sub-domain (part of a larger domain with sub-domain added before the top-level domain with a period, e.g. subdomain.yourgreatdomain.com.) makes good sense.

For example, if you’re selling a single product or service as part of your business, such as a book, and have a number of affiliate websites that want to send customers to a single website focusing on that one particular product and the ability to purchase it.

In this case, a sub-domain makes it easier for the customer to find what they’re looking for, without users being distracted by other products and offerings.

If you have a strong rationale to use multiple domains to promote your business, take special care that the content and information on your multiple websites is significantly different from each other.

Do not cut and paste.

Invest in developing good content and a strong sales proposition. Trying to deceive Google, Yahoo and Bing may provide some short-term gains, but you risk long-term consequences.

A key ingredient in growing your business is developing a strategic marketing plan.

Developing a strategic marketing plan is one of the most important steps a company takes to reach business goals and attain long-term growth and success, yet it is many times ignored.

An effective marketing plan supports a company’s overall business goals and objectives, with detailed marketing strategies and tactics answering the essential questions of Who? Why? What? Where? When? How? and How Much?

Who? Who is the “situation analysis” of your specific marketplace, including company background, products and/or services and the company’s mission. This also identifies key prospects by distinct market segments (Who are they? How many? Where are they located? What are their needs and values? What are their buying motives? etc.) Who also addresses marketplace issues such as: Who are your competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to your company? What trends, issues and opportunities exist in the marketplace, and what strategic options are available in which to benefit from them.

Why? Why focuses on your company’s specific goals and objectives, and what role marketing will play in achieving them. The best goals are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, with a Timeline for achieving them.)

What? What is the “game plan” through which marketing objectives are achieved. This determines the best marketing strategies to be used. The key aspect here is company positioning: the key benefit or promise your firm delivers; how your company is currently perceived by customers, and how it should be perceived; and how your company differentiates itself from competitors. It also forms the basis of the creative sales message that will be the foundation of your marketing.

When? When is the marketing timeline: the chronology and deadlines for meeting each task, by what date, and by whom.

How? How is the actual implementation or action plan. It specifies which marketing tools, tactics and media to use, along with timing and weight. This is where most creative work is done: advertising created, news releases distributed, brochures developed, trade shows attended, digital media created, etc.

How Much? How much refers to the budget that is necessary to fully implement your market program, and how to best allocate funds for each tactic.

Benefits of a strategic marketing plan:

• Encourages a thorough review of all factors that impact success for your business, and brings to light opportunities and pitfalls often overlooked by “winging it.”
• Provides a powerful direction and long-range view to minimize impulsive and costly decisions.
• Stimulates optimum use of marketing budget and re­sources.
• Provides an accurate market-driven foundation on which to build operating plans.
• Builds consensus and support with internal staff and departments.
• Fosters coordination and consolidation of efforts; maximizes efficiency and effectiveness.
• Empowers team members to take action appropriate and consistent with overall company goals.
• Facilitates an objective evaluation of past actions and results; fosters increased utilization of strengths, avoids repetition of mistakes, and indicates where improvement is necessary.
• Clearly delineates goals, facilitates measurement, course corrections when necessary, and recognition of superior performance.

If you’re new to search engine optimization, then you probably have no idea what a meta-tag is, or the rest of the SEO jargon such as SERP, page rank, crawling, or spiders.

Here are some explanations about SEO and its terminology:

Meta-tags are bits of code embedded in a section of web pages called the head. This section contains the code to help browsers render your web page correctly. In addition, information in this section helps search engines understand what content is contained in your website. The three primary meta-tags are the page title, keywords and description.

Crawling for Keywords

In the mid-90s two popular search engines at the time, Infoseek (now defunct) and AltaVista (owned by Yahoo!), first popularized the keywords tag, used to determine what topic and content each website page provided. However, spammers began gaming the system by stuffing meta-tags with keywords containing no relevance to the website’s content, and hence meta-tag importance was diminished in determining how high a website would rank in search results.

Content is King

In terms of search engine rankings, content reigns supreme. If you want your website appear to high in search rankings results for specific keywords and phrases, they must appear within the content of your website.

How often keywords appear and how they fit into your overall business message is exactly where a SEO professional can provide real benefit. These professionals can accurately choreograph where and when specific keywords are placed, so that your business can be found by potential customers searching for you.

When you provide valuable content, readers will recognize this and return to your site as the authoritative source for their needs. Providing consistent, valuable content will establish you as a leader in your industry, and provide a reliable source when customers are ready to purchase.

An Opportunity to Promote Your Business

The main purpose of keyword meta-tags is to support content in search results. The description meta-tag has little impact in how well your website is ranked, but does provide an important function: search engines display the text of description meta-tags under the page title in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Instead of repeating keywords with boring copy, use this opportunity to sell and differentiate your company from other websites on search engine results page (SERP).  As in any advertising sales message, making a creative, compelling argument for your business will do wonders for the amount of web traffic generated from search engines.

The vast number of emails I get from SEO companies promising to get my website on page 1 of Google is quite amazing. These firms must not be doing their homework because my website is already on page 1.

Most often, SEO experts who spam your inbox are snake-oil salesmen reincarnated, using unethical techniques to drive search ranking up. If you’re a novice to search engine optimization, you may be tempted to contact one of these firms – especially those who offer an enticing ploy of not charging until they achieve vague result. The problem is that in search engine optimization there is the right way (“White Hat” methods) to achieve good results, and the wrong way (“Black Hat” methods).

Black Hat Methods Can Get You Blacklisted

SEO firms that employ “black hat” methods such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, cloaked and doorway pages, link farming, and blog spamming, can indeed improve your search rankings short-term, but these techniques violate search engine terms of service, putting your website at risk of being banned. Search algorithms identify SEO trickery and will eventually blacklist your site from future searches, keeping potential customers from being able to find you. It happens every day, and quite often business don’t even realize it until much later.

Costly fees necessary to reinstate your site’s SEO status and integrity

One day your website appears on page 1 of Google and you happily pay the charlatan’s SEO fee; the next day, your website has been “blacklisted” and doesn’t appear on any search engine. Now that great deal is going to cost you more money, time and resources to correct the damage done.

The first clue a SEO firm may be unscrupulous is the fact they promote themselves via unsolicited emails; if they market their own company by using unethical spam techniques, how ethical will they be in their SEO practices to promote your company? Not very, so remain diligent and discerning when choosing a firm to do search engine optimization for your business website.