Mediaboss Marketing

Are you a small to medium business owner who'sthinking of growing your business via the internet

Then you should read this.

Its important to start by saying:

No consultant is a miracle worker. Even though some of them might tell you they are.

Im telling you isbecause unless you have an excellent product or service along with a keenness to deliver every time, then your busines will struggle to grow online.

So the first thing to do is ensure your business provides a product that people love and a delivery process/time that exceeds expectations. Then you can think about hiring a consultant to help you with your strategy.

Once youve decided you do or don't want to hire a consultant, think about what you might want he or she to do.

Do you just want them to give advice so that youor your teamcan go away and make the changes?

If you do, then it is a good idea to at least get a little understanding of the fundamentals first.

Or do you want them to give you advice and implement the tasks or ideas or improvements for you.

Either way, it is always best to work closely with your consultant so that you can build a strong business relationship and build the business together.

Sometimes businesses dont have the technical expertise to deliver the ideas and its therefore quicker (but more costly) to have a 3rd party company do the implementation. Find out from your consultation whether your consultant has the ability to deliver or you need to find your own help once you know what you are doing.

Over timehowever, you may want to bring the expertise in-house so that you dont have to spend money outsourcing. Therefore training is anan important factor as part of the consulting,outsourcing or hiring a new expert.

In the UK and as of this writing, the average cost of a digital marketing manager is between 25,000 and 30,000.

So if youre thinking of hiring a consultant, you should bear this in mind when weighing up the possible returns on your investment.

Your potential consultant should be able to give you an idea of what your return on investment might be depending on the marketing activities that you undertake.

If you were to hire a consultant or 3rd party on 25 per hour for 60 hours per month (part-time) it would cost 1500. Therefore a total of 18,000 for the year. So the expertise of the person delivering the work is slightly lower but you receive less of a focus on your business.

If you decide it's best to hire staff, make sure you look for the following qualities:

There are a number of approaches you can take here.

The first is to do a search in Google and add your local area to the search term. For example

I personally would advise you use a consultant who you can get hold of quickly and easily. You never know when you might have that all important idea you really want to discuss immediately.

Another way of finding a consultant is by looking on the local and national directory listings. Many frelancers will list themselves as a marketing consultant and you can screen them before making that all important decision.

Thirdly, you could speak to people you know who have used consultants in the past. Ask about their services and how good they are. Theres nothing better than someone endorsing a consultant to you because the proof is already there.

Many people jump straight into building a website and only think about the design. This is a huge mistake.

Why?

Because you end up spending thousands on a website and then having to spend thousands on marketing and promotion

Before building a website, you need to think about your internet marketing strategy.

Its so much easier to build your website with your strategy in mind than it is to rework your website after its been built.

I compare it to a house. It would be very difficult to build a house and then decide how you want to lay out the windows.

Well you website is the same. Its much easier to decide on the keywords, tone of voice, customer journey and product offerings well before you build your website.

In essence, you are the only person who can make the final decision but hoepfully this post gives you some things to think about. But ultimately if you dont have the expertise in-house and are confident In your product or service. Try to get a free consultation with an internet marketing consultant before you make the jump into buying a brand new website. It could save you a lot of money in the long run.

No matter what you do, it's always a good idea to farmiliarise yourself with the environment you're business is stepping in to. So remember to give yourself time and add it to your to-do list when necessary.

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How to hire an Internet Marketing Consultant - BusinessZone (blog)

While Altucher himself went to a Ivy League school, Cornell University, he says his computer science degree "was a waste. I put in my 10,000 hours of programming, went to graduate school [at Carnegie Mellon] for computer science and put in probably another 10,000 hours.

"Then I actually got a real job in the real world. ... My programming skills were so bad and this is after graduate school and undergrad at the two best computer science schools in the country, or in the top 10 they had to send me to remedial classes."

Rather than getting degrees, young people should focus on getting skills, he argues, which you can learn online, by going to the library and reading books or simply once you enter the workforce. "I have employees: They're experts on writing, finance, sales, the latest internet marketing, all of these things that are not taught in college at all because a lot of the skills were actually created yesterday and they have to keep up with them on a daily basis," he says. "What they're good at is learning what was created yesterday, and you build that on the job."

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Self-made millionaires say you should think twice before going to college - CNBC

Lodging Interactive today announced the integration of its fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services into Facebooks social media platform. As a result hoteliers can now benefit by providing Live Chat services to consumers when they visit their hotels Facebook page.

Lodging Interactive, an award winning digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, today announced the integration of its fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services into Facebooks social media platform. As a result hoteliers can now benefit by providing Live Chat services to consumers when they visit their hotels Facebook page.

Consumers are increasingly using Live Chat services to engage with hotels in real time and our Facebook integration ensures the hotel always has fully trained Live Chat agents available 7 days a week to respond to potential guests, stated DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive's Founder and President. Our fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat service is a game changer for hotels who truly are looking to step up their customer service.

In today's fast paced mobile environment, hotels can effectively differentiate themselves against their competitive sets by providing online Live Chat customer service. Engaging with potential guests in real-time while on the hotel website provides opportunities to surprise and delight resulting in more wedding, group and event leads and creates guest loyalty to a hotel. Research continues to show that 65% of consumers would return to a website that had Live Chat services over one that didnt.

Customer service is the NEW MARKETING and hoteliers who understand how low current customer expectations bar is, can deploy our CoMMingle Live Chat service to win new customers, added DJ Vallauri. Our fully managed Live Chat service offers US based, fully trained Live Chat agents and provides coverage 7 days a week. And now with our Facebook integration we're increasing opportunities for hotels to always be available where and when their guests are.

For more information about the fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services for hotels visit: http://www.LiveChatForHotels.com or call 877-291-4411 extension 701.

About Lodging Interactive

Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Lodging Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement and reputation management agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, Lodging Interactive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas. CoMMingle has established itself as the largest provider of reputation management services for the hospitality industry, handling over 200,000 guest review responses. The company also offers fully managed Live Chat agents for hotel websites through its LiveChatForHotels.com division.

Lodging Interactive is an HSMAI Adrian Award winner, and has won awards from the International Academy of Visual Arts, Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, Web Marketing Association, Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, and Travel Weeklys Magellan Awards have recognized Lodging Interactive as an industry leader.

Lodging Interactive is a proud supporter of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the companys president, DJ Vallauri, currently serves on the Board of Directors of HSMAIs New York Chapter and is a Forbes.com Agency Council contributor. For more information, please contact sales@lodginginteractive.com, 877-291-4411 or visit the companys website.

Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

2017 Hotel News Resource

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Lodging Interactive Integrates Live Chat Services Into Facebook For Hotels - Hotel News Resource (press release)

[Corrected, 2:25pm. See below] Tis the season for Boston tech startups founded in 2010and their productsto get acquired. Kinvey and Intrepid were bought last month, and now its SocMetrics turn. The Cambridge, MA-based social marketing companys original productcalled SocMetrics Influencer Platformhas been snapped up by Grapevine, a Boston marketing tech firm. Terms of the deal werent disclosed. [A previous version of this paragraph said SocMetrics the company was acquired. Wording was corrected to say its product has been acquiredEds.]

The acquisition seems to make sense for both companies. SocMetrics identifies social media influencers in specific categories for advertising and marketing purposes, and helps agencies engage with them. Grapevine works to connect brands and advertisers with these popular influencers to drive business.

SocMetrics raised a $1.2 million seed round in 2012 from Google Ventures, Charles River Ventures, CommonAngels, Boston Seed Capital, 500 Startups, and angel investors.

Grapevine is led by CEO and co-founder Grant Deken. The company previously went through the Techstars Boston and MassChallenge accelerator programs. (SocMetrics is also a MassChallenge alum.) Earlier this year, Grapevine sold a majority stake to Sun Seven Stars, a Chinese media and investment group led by Bruno Wu.

In an e-mail, Deken says the SocMetrics platform acquisition will expand our strategic footprint and diversify our revenue and customer mix. He adds that SocMetrics software will be rebranded as Scout, and that Grapevine is on track to double its core business this year with half the staff size, as compared to last year.

SocMetrics was co-founded by Roy Rodenstein and Rebecca Xiong. They wont be joining Grapevine, but are advising the company during the transition, Deken says. Rodenstein says in a Twitter message that SocMetrics the company continues with our other marketing apps. [Comment from Rodenstein addedEds.]

Rodenstein and Xiong have a history of startup exits: a previous company of theirs, Going, was acquired by AOL in 2009. Xiong says on her LinkedIn page that she is currently CEO of GrowEpic. Rodenstein and Xiong are both involved with a service called MyTwitterManager, as well.

Marketing tech is as strong as ever in the Boston area. In addition to big players like HubSpot and Constant Contact (now owned by Endurance International Group Holdings), newer companies like ThriveHive, Crayon, Mautic, and Zaius have made recent progress in the field.

Gregory T. Huang is Xconomy's Deputy Editor, National IT Editor, and Editor of Xconomy Boston. E-mail him at gthuang [at] xconomy.com.

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SocMetrics Scooped Up by Grapevine in Social Marketing Deal ... - Xconomy

Head of digital and social marketing shares how she's working to blur the line between marketing and sales

Sales and marketing are supposed to work in harmony, with one supporting the other to achieve the organisations revenue goals. In reality, the two functions often are at war. But a new social media strategy, coupled with some good old fashioned sales experience is helping Lenovo to finally bridge the gap.

Lenovos head of digital and social marketing for Asia Pacific, Danielle Uskovic, attributes her success in working effectively with her companys sales team partly due to her own sales background in the communications technology sector.

I actually sold the Internet to businesses I used to go in and try and convince businesses they needed to be connected to the Internet, and sell them 56K modems, Uskovic says. I literally had to cold call.

In her now role heading up social and digital at Lenovo, Uskovic has responsibility for setting strategy and rolling out projects and programmes throughout the region. But it is the work she is doing internally through the deployment of LinkedIns social selling tool Sales Navigator that is having immediate benefit for her companys sales team.

It is about how they use the knowledge they have in the offline world and transfer it into an online world, Uskovic says. It is a lot faster and more efficient to do it online, versus the old traditional way of cold calling. But they need to understand the nuances and how to use the tools that are available to them to actually make those connections.

Sales Navigator provides the opportunity for Lenovos sales team to utilise their relationships and knowledge about trends and customer behaviour to raise their visibility within key clients.

If you look at IT decision makers, they need to know what solution they want before they reach out, Uskovic says. But they all say they dont have time for reps to be trying to contact them. And when you ask where do they get their content, they get it from LinkedIn.

Once they have made up their mind, they will then reach out to three vendors. We need to be on that shortlist, and this is whats guaranteeing us to be on that shortlist.

Implementing Sales Navigator has required some behavioural changes within the sales teams themselves however, not the least of which has been for them to become more digitally-social.

There is so much that surrounds the tool that they need to understand, Uskovic says. Content is front and centre, and I have asked them to be producing one piece of longform content every month.

Lenovo has also created the TechRevolution.asia website as a thought leadership hub that the sales team can call on for content and ideas.

It is not heavily branded Lenovo, and looks very much like a tech publication, Uskovic says. But all of the articles on there have been written by our executive or marketing team, or even some of our sales leaders.

Despite her sales background, Uskovic says it still took approximately 12 months of internally championing the program before receiving consent from the senior executives.

That was really just trying to get senior executives to understand that traditional sales no longer exists, and that you actually have to think about how sales people can form and build relationships and position themselves differently in this digital world, she says.

It really that came back to the fact that I have done a sales role and lived and breathed it.

Those teams now using Sales Navigator are generating four times the engagement of non-users, and are nine times more connected to key decision makers, leading to improved lead generation and attendance at events. These boosted metrics are also leading to an increase in the one metric that ultimately matters revenue.

They are seeing an increase in their pipeline, Uskovic says. They are seeing a shorter sales cycle, because they can get real information in real time. It is helping them find the right people, get more engagement, and be more seen as a thought leader.

Ultimately, Uskovic sees programs such this as an inevitable step in the blurring of the sales and marketing functions

Salespeople need to be more like marketers in this new digital world, and marketers need to be more like sales people, she says.

More and more of the sales cycle is becoming the marketing responsibility. But then for a sales person it is becoming more and more a part of their responsibility to position themselves as thought leaders and market themselves as such. There is definitely a blurring happening.

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How Lenovo's social strategy is helping bridge the marketing/sales divide - CMO