McIntosh Marketing Blog

Yes it sounds unbelievable but it is true…

There is one company that is going for broke with their marketing. They sold $1.1 BILLION DOLLARS in 3 days …just this week-end!

They are selling items that cost hundreds of dollars each and for the most part their products require that you sign up for  1 to 2 years of additional (costly) monthly services.

In the midst of a massive and stifling recession this company moves forward using every tool in the marketing handbook.  Tools that you can use right now with only minimal prep time.

This company has utilized every Online Marketing tool and strategy.  By the way, this was done at very little cost as well.

I did a search for their new product and here is what I found online:

42,900.000 Blogs with with content about their product
9,730,000 Pages online with content about their product
363,000 Images of their product
18,338 “likes” on their product Facebook page
10,800 videos with content about their product
2,140 News Items online with content about their product

Most people consider this company to be a technology company. After reviewing these figures I am solidly convinced that this company is a Marketing company.

It generates BUZZ like no one else and as a result it moves product.

These are the same tried and true proven methods of Online Marketing that we deliver for our clients day in and day out.

And they too are reaping the rewards from this amazingly effective marketing.

Who is this amazing Company?

It is Apple!

This week end they sold an estimated $1,139,000,000.00 worth of the new iphone 4g.

Yes they did this over the week-end. With a minimal cost to them too!

So the next time someone tells you “Online marketing doesn’t work!”

Remove that person from your circle of trusted advisors for they know not what they speak of !

Author: Carlos Gamez
Business Development, McIntosh Marketing
[email protected]

Image by:   Garret Albright

Now this is a question that I hear over and over from client’s and co-workers alike.  Everyone wants to know if Affiliate Marketing is not only worth it but if it is really beneficial?  Or what the risks are of marketing for a company and then finding out their unethical?  Just like everything else, it really depends on what products your sign up for and how you market them.

One of the most important things you must do before deciding to market for a company is to inspect the website.  Take your time to check and make sure they have accurate contact information by calling them or looking them up in an online phone directory.  You can also take this time to verify their address.  If you notice the address varies with other listings online then this may be a flag that the business is not legitimate.  This is not always the case as others may be marketing this product as an affiliate as well but the corporate information, address and phone number should all match up regardless.

PAY ATTENTION!!!   You should always make sure their site offers details, images and a full description of the product or service that they are offering.  You are responsible for what you are promoting so it is very important that you educate yourself on the product or service prior to any affiliate marketing promotions.

Always check the sites disclosure on what the charges will be to the users/client’s.  This will show you that there is nothing the company is trying to hide and that it is not a scam.  If there is no disclosure on the site it may be a real good sign to take your business somewhere else.

Next you should search for their company name on Google.  This will show you how well they are ranking currently which can give you some insight on how easy or difficult it may be to market the product.  Like I said, this is just for insight and it may not be accurate for a product that is brand new.  Also at this time you can see what kind of feedback people are giving on the product prior to committing to selling it.  You can see if there are lot’s of customer complaints or satisfaction which can help you make your decision before investing any time or money into it.  You have to be realistic when using this tip to make a decision because many companies will have complaints, regardless of their legitimacy, so you may need to feel them out to see if the complaints are valid.

Allot goes into finding an legitimate affiliate with a good offer besides just how much they pay out.  Always make sure you feel 100% informed about your product so you are totally comfortable prior to selling it.  Confidence and believing in your product truly is the key to increasing your online sales and making your affiliate marketing really worth it!

Over the last few years I have been asked for my marketing glossary several times.  Truth is, I don’t really have one.  I do have notes with definitions here and there but have never actually put them all in one place.  In fact, when I try to explain these marketing terms to someone, it seems to me that most of the time they think these terms don’t really exist!  It could be due to many of them sounding very similar to each other but trust me they have very different meanings.  I really felt the following keywords should be listed as they tend to be used most often and more commonly but for the full list with detailed definitions go to http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

Recessions and tough times are good for marketing opportunities. But unfortunately most business professionals, entrepreneurs and even marketing experts have a counter-intuitive reaction to this statement. You know the old saying, “Buy low, sell high.” There is a corollary to this adage in marketing: “Economy soft, market hard.”

Now while I can send you a White Paper that substantiates this proposition so clearly and so emphatically, unfortunately it would not really matter how many reports, statistics or evidence I produced for many. What many of these businesses professionals are running into is not lack of evidence, but an abundance of preconceived and fixed ideas that disallow the ability to view new and more effective methodologies.

Case in point #1: Yesterday I was calling on a prospective client. I informed her what I did in that I helped small businesses like hers to effectively market themselves with internet marketing tools, such as social media and local search. She rapidly replied, “We don’t do marketing because we are a small company.” I had to suppress the laugh. Maybe it’s the other way around.

Case in point #2: Having worked for years with CPA’s, Accountants and Enrolled Agents, I have noted an epidemic amongst their industry members when it comes to a fixed idea that is literally stopping them from adapting to the new world of online marketing and social media. “We are a referral business only.” One CPA went onto tell me, “Although CPA’s are traditionally seen as having very little personality, our business is built on relationships.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this is the case with all successful businesses.

In these two case point above, it was not that there was lack of evidence or a lack of statistics to utterly prove that social media is referral ginseng: organic fuel for their most trusted source of marketing themselves and developing new business.

And this brings me to an important element that has been missing in the education system, our universities and within the various agencies and organizations established to help businesses. That good marketing is not an expense, but an investment; an actual part of conducting business. To succeed, any business person must not only know how to market, but must also know how to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in marketing, as there will always be better and more effective ways to market. As the world evolves, the ways of reaching, motivating and selling also evolve.

In its day, the Pony Express was pretty slick. It was the social networking of 1860. But then came the telegraph. Ponies and the adventurous men who rode them were now suddenly outdated. What was innovative one year was completely disregarded the next.

Get off the pony and learn to telegraph. Today, learn internet marketing tools and how to use them.

When a visitor comes to your site, will they know what to do?

Within seconds of your landing page loading, the visitor should know exactly what action they are supposed to take.  If you want them to call you, your phone number should be visible and featured prominently.  If you want them to sign up for a newsletter, direct their attention to your sign up form and tell them to fill it out.

Too often, a company builds a beautiful website that looks great and is very pleasing to the eye, but the site makes it difficult, if not impossible, to actually allow them to contact you.  If you want a visitor to call you, don’t bury your phone number in the footer of your website.

It doesn’t make sense to spend so much time and money building the site, spending time and money marketing your site, and then making it difficult for your users to reach or buy from you.

Many people say they don’t want to drive users away, or offend in some way, but don’t forget the purpose of your site.  You are making a website to sell your products or service, so make it easy for them to become a customer!

Lastly, you need to tell the user what you want them to do.  You only have a couple seconds to to grab their attention, so in that span of time, tell them to “Call Us Now” or “Sign Up Now To Get…”.  Otherwise, you’ll lose a high percentage of them.

Someone posted a question on a forum today about whether Twitter was actually worthwhile or not in the marketing of their brand new website. It got me thinking about how people use Twitter, how I use Twitter, and what people who haven’t been on these social networks like I have for years think of it. So I thought it would be a good idea to write about it here, and come up with a few reasons why Twitter is an awesome marketing tool, perhaps even better than what you could do in three dimensions pre-internets.

1. Good luck telling 5000 people about your brand new company instantaneously and for free in the real world.

As a business owner, you’re trying to find people who are interested in your products or services, and market said products and services TO them, so you can sell and deliver those products and services. Right? Right. So how do you find these people? You can purchase expensive mailing lists.  That is risky and costly, and only as effective as the mailing list creators actually create correct lists. You can pay for advertising in magazines you know your public read.  Expensive, but effective if your text is correct and you’ve done your surveying to find out the correct buttons of your public.  Billboards, tv and radio ads are very expensive ways to promote to very large audiences in the hopes that some will be interested in your company.  There are a lot of ways to do this. Most involve money, lots of research and considerable time.

Twitter is free. It allows you to promote, FOR FREE to as many people as you can possibly add as followers. If you have 5000 followers, you can tell them all about your new company in the time it takes to type a sentence and click “Send.”

2. Finding the RIGHT public.

How long does it take to collect the names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of 5000 people who are actually INTERESTED in your specific field? Well, if you do broad advertising to general public it can take a long time. If you use Twitter search you can find, in about a second, every single Twitter user who is interested and talking about your particular field or industry. Then you can request to add them as followers.  BAM! Instant friends who have similar interests to yours.

3. Retweets!

When Twitter users (tweeple) like your posts, they retweet them. You can even ask your friends and followers to retweet something you feel is important, and often they will. This is a common practice among tweeple.  In real life, your customers will mention your products or services to their friends when the opportunity arises or when they think of it. But on Twitter, all they have to do is click RT and send your tweet out to their 5000 friends. This can go on and on until your post is actually automatically featured on a web page for popular bookmarks like Populacular.

4. Directing the public to your business.

Standing on a busy corner with a cardboard arrow works well for a car wash, but even then it’s a full time job for someone actually willing to DO that, and it’s certainly not something a business owner would do. He would hire someone and pay them to do that. So that’s money. Not to mention the facts that you may not have a storefront to direct public to, and your business likely isn’t appropriate for street corner sign twirling. So how do you handle the routing of public to your brand new business? Send your Twitter friends the link to your website! Let them know who you are and what you do and give them the link to your website. Easy.

Of course all of the above is assuming that you have a valuable service to offer and that your posts are interesting and offer something to the reader than he will want. As long as you’re providing something of value that the public need or want, Twitter is the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to market your business to a large volume of potential customers who have already expressed interested in your specific field.

McIntosh Marketing, a leading website marketing consultancy, announced today the launch of its new local Internet advertising site at http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com.  This website provides ideas and strategies on the freshest ways for companies to create higher profits and traffic from their online presence.

Stanton, California, March 29th, 2010 – McIntosh Marketing, a leading online marketing company, announced today that they have launched their new local Internet advertising consulting website at http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com.

This website is seamlessly designed to provide businesses with an opportunity for a free local web market analysis and marketing plan to boost traffic and income.  Bill McIntosh and McIntosh Marketing have constructed more than 1,000 websites that garnered over $20 million in revenue.  It has gained over 40,000 Twitter followers and over 500,000 views of CEO Bill McIntosh’s YouTube videos.  The company has successfully weathered the dot.com bust, 9/11, and the recent recession to continue helping businesses’ websites generate increasing profits.

On the new website, companies can learn more about the many methods of creating an effective online presence while deciding if McIntosh Marketing will suit their needs.  Some of the categories available at this site include products and services offered, questions and answers, customer reviews, CEO Bill McIntosh’s blog, and much more.  McIntosh Marketing’s website gives a clear overview of each step to optimize the Internet as a marketing tool, especially affiliate marketing, creating loyalty, word-of-mouth online advertising, website design, pay per click management, search engine optimization, and new media such as social networking sites.

The website will be updated frequently and McIntosh Marketing plans to offer the newest information on Internet marketing trends.  Aggressive advertising for http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com will commence shortly.

About McIntosh Marketing:  McIntosh Marketing is an experienced, real-deal online marketing consulting company that specializes in improving businesses’ online presence, income, and traffic.

Contact:

Edwin Dearborn

12235 Beach Blvd. Suite 206
Stanton, CA 91505

(877) 797-6825

http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com

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McIntosh Marketing, a leading online marketing company, announced today the hiring of a new Chief Brand Officer, Edwin Dearborn.  Edwin Dearborn brings 24 years of marketing and business development experience for national and international corporations, professionals, and business owners.

Stanton, California, March 28^th, 2010 – McIntosh Marketing, a premier local online marketing and consulting company, has hired Edwin Dearborn as Chief Brand Officer.  Joining recently with McIntosh Marketing, Edwin Dearborn will be responsible for overseeing company branding and assisting local businesses with regional online marketing.

Edwin Dearborn joins McIntosh Marketing with 24 years of marketing and business development experience for professionals in many fields, including business, health care, and accounting.  He has a record of generating over $40 million in revenue from personally managing companies and offering training programs to CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners.

As Chief Brand Officer, Edwin Dearborn will tap into his successful career that began at age 20, when he helped bring a family-owned business over $1 million in sales. He has also served as an advertising executive where he traveled internationally and nationally to help companies and corporations with branding, advertising, and sales.  Edwin Dearborn’s last 20 years were spent helping non-profit humanitarian organizations raise millions of dollars for efforts to directly contribute to relief for 9/11, Katrina, tsunami and other disaster victims.

About McIntosh Marketing:  McIntosh Marketing’s Bill McIntosh has brought clients a combined $20 million in revenue.  McIntosh Marketing offers customized online marketing plans designed to increase website traffic, profits, and positive local Internet presence.  For more information about McIntosh Marketing, visit http://www.mcintoshmarketing.com/about-us/the-mcintosh-marketing-team.

Contact:

Edwin Dearborn

12235 Beach Blvd. Suite 206
Stanton, CA 91505

(877) 797-6825

http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com

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McIntosh Marketing, a leading Internet marketing consultancy, announced today its offer to provide free local online marketing evaluations and plans. These consultations will give customized steps and strategies for getting concrete results from web marketing.

Stanton, California, March 27, 2010 – McIntosh Marketing, an experienced online marketing company, announced today the launch of its newest offering, a free Internet marketing analysis and strategic plan.  The strategy creates a step-by-step plan to dramatically improve a company’s revenue, website traffic, and online prestige.  McIntosh Marketing will include instructions on how to do video marketing, social media image, and local search engine optimization.

This free consultation is produced to give companies the chance to turn any non-performing website or online marketing project into a profitable endeavor.  Daily changes in communications technology, like Google’s smartphone interface, have catapulted the importance of establishing a positive, highly visible, local online presence.  The local Internet marketing plan provides a detailed guide of how to maximize Internet exposure for increased business, including how to obtain positive reviews, optimize local search engine results, create loyalty, word-of-mouth online advertising, improve website design, and take advantage of new social networking sites.

Over the past 12 years, Bill McIntosh with McIntosh Marketing, has created 1,000 plus websites and generated $20 million in revenue for its clients.  The company’s Twitter followers number 40,000 and CEO Bill McIntosh’s YouTube videos have had more than 500,000 views.  McIntosh Marketing’s website, http://www.mcintoshmarketing.com/products-services, offers additional resources for Internet marketing.

About McIntosh Marketing:  McIntosh Marketing is a premier, genuine web marketing and consulting company with expertise advising businesses on how to improve their profits, website traffic, and online buzz.

Contact:

Edwin Dearborn

12235 Beach Blvd. Suite 206
Stanton, CA 91505

(877) 797-6825

http://www.McIntoshMarketing.com

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McIntosh Marketing, a leading web marketing consulting company, attended the Orange County Mixer business networking event. The company offered assistance to fellow businesses in perfecting their local online and search-engine marketing presence.

Costa Mesa, California, March 25th, 2010 – McIntosh Marketing, a premiere company that offers customized local Internet marketing, just attended Orange County’s Largest Mixer.  The company offered its expertise, eager to help the thousands of local business attendees during a rebounding economy.

The mixer comprises chambers of commerce, business organizations, and hundreds of industries and companies seeking to network and display their trade.  Bill McIntosh of McIntosh Marketing brings over 12 years of successful experience honing companies’ online presence to boost revenue, website traffic, and word-of-mouth Internet referrals.  During the mixer, McIntosh Marketing offered up its own success at creating more than 1,000 websites, gaining 40,000 plus followers on Twitter, and 500,000 YouTube video views as an example of what it can do for other businesses.

Interested companies were offered the new website address, http://www.mcintoshmarketing.com/about-us/the-ceo-bill-mcintosh, to gain further information on the company’s services and a free marketing plan consultation.  Says company CEO Bill McIntosh;

“I have taken my 12 years of experience and whittled that down to a precise system that I know works every time. It works for every business, every time.”

McIntosh Marketing has helped bring in $20 million in revenue for its clients, using its 88-step plan to create an online buzz of business reviews, a flood of website traffic, and ultimately more profits.  The company states that 89% of offline purchases are made after being researched online first, making a local Internet marketing plan crucial for all businesses.

McIntosh Marketing offers a blog and live training videos to teach companies how to improve their online marketing, as well as tips on their website for a wide range of topics, such as using social media, search engine and website optimization, and affiliate program management.

About McIntosh Marketing:  McIntosh Marketing is an experienced online marketing and consulting company.  They aim to help clients establish a powerful Internet marketing campaign to increase business and website traffic.

Contact:
Edwin Dearborn
12235 Beach Blvd. Suite 206
Stanton, CA 91505
(877) 797-6825

http://www.mcintoshmarketing.com

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