Posts Tagged ‘business’

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Do Your Customers Know Where to Find You?

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

Yahoo Local Listings Basic Is Free

Yahoo offers a free listing with your basic information for free, but charges $9.95/month for all of the features that Google Places includes for free.  I would still advise you to use their basic service.  It is free and it puts you in front of people who are using Yahoo and looking for local businesses.

With your free business listing in Yahoo Local you can display your address, phone number and web site URL if you have one.  As Yahoo says, this is just basic information, but you can put your business in up to 5 categories.  This is helpful.

For example, at Ajalon we could be under printers and we could also put an entry into copying, graphic design, wedding invitations and letterpress.  That would mean that if a person searched for any one of those terms our business would likely come up in a Yahoo search.  You can do this for your business also.

You may sell flooring. But you could have listings under carpets, hardwood floors, floor refinishing and commercial flooring.  All of these additional listings would be available to you if people were searching for these items.

Included in this basic listing is the ability to list the products, services or brands that you have.  For example if you carried garden equipment who could list all the brands like Toro, Black and Decker, Stihl, Snapper and other brands.  Or if you were a spa you could list all the services you offer such as facials, manicures, pedicures, massage and other offerings.

People from your area are searching every day for the products and services you offer.  Yahoo knows this and has built a service to help them find what they want.  Yahoo invites you to cooperate with them in meeting the needs of people searching.  For free.  This is really unprecedented.  When was the last time the newspaper, tv or radio asked you to advertise your business for free, so that their patrons could satisfy what they were looking for or needed?

If you would like help in setting up this free service from Yahoo give us a call.  707.528.0288.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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It’s Free, So Why Not Do It?

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Sonoma County Businesses Can Get Free Listing on Google

The way people find businesses has changed, and now more people search online than anywhere else.  I don’t usually promote something so blatantly, but I think the possibilities of being found in local business listings can benefit any business. Google, Bing and Yahoo all do it for free and I will tell you how each does it.

Creating a listing through Google Places takes a little bit of time, but it makes it more likely that you can be easily found on Google.com and Google Maps.  And as I’ve said before, it doesn’t cost a thing.

Your business listing probably already shows up on Google, but by going into Google Places you can update information and verify that it is accurate.  You can also add notifications, which can give you a fresh, current appearance to your listing.  And you don’t even need a website in order to maintain your listing.

Customization is easy

One of the advantages of setting up your own listing is that you can add photos and videos.  You can create custom categories, personalizing your information, adding things like business hours, parking and even offer coupons to encourage customer to make a first-time or repeat purchase.

Verification is valuable

Google collects information to fill your business listing.  If you go in and verify that you are authorized to represent the company, Google then allows you to personalize your information.  In addition to being able to add your own details about your business, Google will also begin to collect data that can be helpful to you in running your business.  This can allow you to make changes that will help you increase your business.

Training Videos Available

Google wants to make this service accessible and useable.  There are numerous online videos which explain how to set up  your business listing.  It is clear that  the battle for people’s attention and search clicks is so intense, that the search engines are fighting for market share and your business can benefit because you can get great information out about your business onto the first page of a search.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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New Marketing Secret: Free Tips on Local Search Engine Marketing

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Local Seo Is A Powerful, Effective Way to Promote Your Business

One of the good things about the growing use of the internet is that it is becoming easier to promote your business in your local community.  We are a printing business and we have been here in Sonoma County for over 50 years.  And we have experienced real pressure on our business because of computers and the internet.

But now there is an opportunity to capitalize on the fact that people are looking to find things in their own communities, like Sebastopol or Santa Rosa, not just buy things on Amazon or Ebay. On the whole people are developing in the use of their computer and are searching for services and products in their local community.  And the search engines have recognized that.

Google, Yahoo and Bing have set up local search results that help find local businesses that people are looking for.  And getting your name into these  directories is free.  The search engine companies realized that making it easier for people to find what they were looking for, especially on a local level, made the search engine more valuable because people would use it more regularly.  So they decided to add these local search capacities for free.  nadda.  zilch.

This is like being listed in the yellow pages for free!  I suggest you look into how to do this for yourself.  Below is a link to a youtube video where Google introduces their service. They call their service Google Places.

I suggest you check it out and consider making your business more findable on the internet.  This is something you can do yourself or we at Ajalon can help you do this if you don’t have the inclination or time to set it up.  The search engines are battling for this part of the market right now and you can benefit for free.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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People are looking for what you want to sell

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

When you sit down and think about it, most of the people who will be visiting your web site will have put some words into a search engine that they think will help them find what they want.  People do not just turn their computer on and presto, find you.

The Good News

Following from this observation you know something important. When visitors come to your site they are looking for something. More importantly, they are looking for something that is on your site.

This is tremendous.  It is like somebody walking into your store who wants to buy.  This is an ideal marketing situation.  You don’t have to capture their attention and you know they are willing to buy.  You don’t have to distract or attract them, they’ve come to your site willingly.

In traditional advertising or marketing, a lot of money is often spent just to get qualified leads.  With internet marketing you start with a qualified lead because anybody who comes to your site found you because of something on your site.  They are looking for what you have.

This was the appeal of yellow page advertising.  You wanted to have an ad in the yellow pages because if people picked up the book to look they were committed and serious.  Yellow page advertising has been falling off  precipitously because business owners have learned that consumers are not searching the yellow pages as much, but are using their computers to find what they are looking for.

Even people who don’t have computers go to the library to use a computer to find a car or whatever they are looking for.

And, it’s not just young people. Every age group is participating.  The other day when I was in the Apple Store drooling over the new iPad, I noticed around the display table that there was one person so young that their head barely reached over the table and there was a couple on the other side that could have been her great-grandparents.  Young and old alike are using computers to search for what they want.

We will continue in our next blog discussing how you can attract those eyes that are looking for your product or service.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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Santa Rosa Printer Promotes Postcards

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

Sonoma County Businesses are Sending Postcards

Businesses in Sebastopol or Windsor are always looking for an advantage in marketing and printed postcards are an effective way to do that. There are a number of ways that postcards can be used.

.        Increase sales from your customer base

.        Get new customers

.        Attract more traffic to your web site

.        Generate leads

.        When using postcards you must grab the reader’s attention quickly to keep them reading your card.  Offer them an incentive.

.        Advertise the higher quality of your product

.        Tell them of your special

.        Let them know of your lower price

You need to grab your customer’s attention quickly, before the postcard gets thrown out.  There is a better chance they will read and keep the postcard if you print the incentive so that it grabs their attention.

A powerful way to get their attention is to personalize your postcards.  A generic looking card will not be as likely to be read as one that is personalized.  Use your client’s first name and watch their response go up. Just think of the power of greeting a person who comes into your store with their name.  It builds instant rapport and usually produces a smile on their face.

It is the same with a postcard.  This style of postcard looks like a brief personal message from a friend.  They may realize it is advertising, but it lures them in and attracts their attention.

So you can tell that I like postcards when thinking about effective marketing plans. They are inexpensive.  You can have a stack of them handy to send out for various occasions like thanking customers who recently bought something or to alert people of an upcoming event or sale.

I love to imagine this web reaching out from your business in Petaluma or Santa Rosa criss crossing Sonoma County, keeping you in touch with your most important asset, your customers.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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A Real Life Story
The Value of a Newsletter
Does this Newsletter Thing Really Work?

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Ok, we’ve have been talking about how printed newsletters are so great.  So tell me about somebody in Santa Rosa or Sebastopol who used newsletters and helped their business.  Does it really happen?

Newsletters do work.  I mentioned “By Referral Only” earlier.  Joe Stumpf does a marvelous job of training real estate professionals to use newsletters as part of their business growth and referral.  Following is a testimony of one of those agents recounting the impact of her newsletter:

Pam Sitterly, with RE/MAX, sends her newsletter to 225 clients a month.

“I attribute about 65% of my income to my Client Newsletter,” says Pam. “I invest $1.17 per client per mailing. I send it in a 6″ x 9″ envelope and pay for two-ounce postage. I mail 225 newsletters per month and it brings me a $29-to-$1 return.

“The newsletter is the single best investment that I know of for keeping in touch. My clients never wonder if I’m still in the business, because they have a monthly reminder that I’m still their Realtor, with my name and contact information easily at their fingertips.

“Preparing the newsletter gives me great pleasure, even though my assistant takes care of the bulk of it. I frequently receive compliments on it, which I love. Readers find it endearing, and it establishes a rapport that otherwise might not occur so quickly.

“I make the newsletter my own by including a monthly staging tip and real estate Q&A. Page eight is always a full-page flyer promoting one of my listings. Almost every month readers enter the trivia contest to win a pair of movie tickets.

“The newsletter is as much a part of my real estate business as buyers and sellers. It helps define who I am and how I run my business. It is extremely important to me and is one of the reasons I love what I do.”

So there you have it.  One business person who uses her newsletter and finds it very profitable. I would be willing to wager that those who don’t use a newsletter probably think that it doesn’t work.  Those who do probably have real life experience that it does.

You can see in Pam’s testimony the benefits that a newsletter has for any business, whether you are in Windsor or Petaluma or anywhere is the Wine Country.  Sending out a newsletter serves as a monthly reminder to your customers.  It establishes rapport and gets clients involved in your business and thinking of you.

Pam even sees it as creating part of her identity.  The professional who stays in touch.  Wouldn’t that be how we would like our customers to think of us?  She feels proud about using this valuable marketing piece and it gives her greater job satisfaction.  All things we love to hear.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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Keeping in Touch Can Make You Money
Newsletters Can Increase Your Business
5 Strategies to Improving Your Newsletters

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Printing a newsletters can be an excellent marketing tool as it can be used to promote the products and services provided by your local business. A good business newsletter can help to increase business and to make a sale. It may seem strange to you to send your newsletter from Santa Rosa to Sebastopol, but the truth is that if you don’t tell your customers what you are doing, even if you are as close as Rohnert Park and Cotati, they will not likely know.

If you’re stumped on how to write an effective newsletter for your business, then consider utilizing the following strategies.

You should not include each one of these ideas in each newsletter.  Your newsletter needs to be short and readable, not a tome.

  • Before you produce the newsletter, you need to determine its purpose. Ask yourself who you’re writing the newsletter for. Since we’re talking about business newsletters, chances are that your readers are customers or potential customers. You want to cater your newsletter specifically to them.
  • Remember to always think of your newsletter from your reader’s point of view.  Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”  You can fill a newsletter that really excites you and tells of all your latest accomplishments, but your readers may really be “ho hum” about all this.  They are likely to say, “What does all this mean for me?” Be sure you tell them how what you do can benefit them.
  • Consider writing each issue around a theme.  It helps to have a theme that holds each issue together.  It helps your readers and you.  When I focus down into one idea I find that I can write more easily rather than having the whole world to write about.
  • Include graphics and photos in the newsletter.  Don’t cram it full of text so that you have paragraph after paragraph with very little white space showing on the page.  It will actually influence your potential readers not to start.
  • Include information about your business. Include articles that emphasize company accomplishments and success stories of products sold. Articles such as these help lend credibility to your business. Don’t brag, but do highlight your achievements.

I can think of no better way to keep in touch with your clients and help prospects to remember you are waiting to serve them than by printing a newsletter and mailing it out.  We will continue with 5 more winning strategies on writing top notch newsletters in our next session.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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How to Write Flyers and Emails that Make You Money

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Learn the secrets that top copy writers use to earn thousands of dollars.

What you need to know in order to write flyers and emails that get responses.

In today’s world we are all inundated with flyers or emails about this or that thing. How can you get your prospects to take the time to read your flyer and respond so that you can stay in business in beautiful Sonoma County?

The first place you need to start is to begin thinking about what your reader wants.  What benefits does your product or service provide?  Realize your reader is going to ask WIIIFM?  That is, “What’s in it for me?”  Our customers are basically selfish.  They don’t care how much you like your product or service.  They want you to answer the question, “What difference does this make for me?”

Until you take the time to really examine what you are offering from your reader’s point of view, you will only be blowing your own horn for your own ears.  You must tickle your reader’s ears.  Look at what the real life benefit of using your product or service is for your reader.

What is the unique benefit of working with you that can changes their lives, solve their problems or add to their pleasures?  That is what they are interested in.   They will read what you write and take action only if they are convinced this will meet a need they have.

Don’t skip over this step.  The clearer you are and the more finely tuned you get on this matter, the better success you will have in writing your copy.  If you know where you are going, you can find the best path to get there.  If you are unclear, you can waste time wandering around.

Get Their Attention!

Use a headline on your flyer or email.  You have bits of a second to get their attention and get them reading, before they decided they are not interested and toss you aside.  Grab their attention.

So how do you do that you ask?  Well if you have got clear what the benefits to your reader are, then you pick the most powerful one from your reader’s point of view and make it stand out.  Make it the biggest type on the page.

It’s the difference in saying a car will get you from one place to another (a function).  Or saying owning this car will save you money.  Which are you more interested in hearing about?

List all the benefits you want, but emphasize the most important by making it the biggest type size and then follow up with the remaining benefits.  Build a compelling list of reasons why what you are offering is the best thing since sliced bread.  Don’t exaggerate, but don’t be shy and artificially humble.

We have shown you how to get your readers attention and get them reading.  Next time we will cover how to avoid distracting your reader and get them to take action.  Following these guidelines will result in you getting better results from your flyers or emails.

Whether you are posting your flyers on a bulletin board in Sebastopol or distributing them throughout Santa Rosa, you will be able to get the right people to read your flyer.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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Nine Networking Tips for Every Business person

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Networking is important to the career of every successful business person.  It builds rapport with prospects and customers that will hopefully lead to a greater number of referrals and a more successful closing rate.  Pam Murray of Many Waters Publishing offers these tips to help you improve your networking skills:

  • Make at least three networking calls a day.  Okay, maybe you won’t do this every day, but realize that if you are to be successful at this you must practice and make an effort to keep reaching out.
  • Give. Give. Give.  Help people as much as you can.  Remember, you will receive only as much as you give.  Givers gain.
  • When at an event, always sit with someone new.  You can’t gain new prospects by constantly socializing with old acquaintances.
  • Call a colleague and ask what kind of leads he or she is looking for.  He or she will be pleasantly surprised and will think of you the next time he or she is handing out leads.
  • At the beginning of each week, write down your networking goals and action plan for the upcoming week.  It will make your networking much more valuable because you’ll know exactly why you’re taking each specific step.
  • Call at least one person on your list whom you may be nervous about calling.
  • Actively seek new ways to give leads to others.
  • Join a networking group.  This seems obvious but may be overlooked.  Here is a place that you can practice and learn new skills in an on-going, regular endeavor.
  • Have fun.  Networking is the easiest, most enjoyable way to build not only a client base, but a support foundation that will see you through both good and bad times.

I have endeavored to give you a brief introduction to the powerful practice of business networking.  The above mentioned Pam Murray has written a book on it.  Ivan Misner and Virginia Devine have written extensively on the subject.  There are many excellent books available.

Building your business through a concerted effort of business networking is certainly a practice that gives high return on investment.  It really only requires that you make a commitment to it and follow through.   Or you can spend unlimited amounts of money hiring a marketing firm to build a program and spend a lot of money on all the available public media, like radio, TV, newspapers and magazines.

Business networking really is fun because you get to meet new people and make new friends, and who doesn’t like friends?  It really is a program that you can get excited about and reap the benefits of increasing the circle of friends, colleagues, and clients in your business and personal life.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printig & Design

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A Super Script to Build a Successful Business

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

How communicating clearly what you do can create more business.

We all understand the wisdom of the adage; you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And we know that if we are unclear about what we do, or what type of work we want to do, certainly others will be also equally confused.

Many people form an initial impression of you in the first 3 to 8 seconds of your meeting. It’s critical that you be aware of how your appearance, body language, tone of voice (along with pace, inflection and pitch), your choice of words and the content of what you say, influence their lasting impression of you.

When you introduce yourself for the first time, how you describe yourself plays a significant role in how others perceive you.  It can determine how much they will be willing to consider using your services or referring you to others.

There is a lot of information that needs to be communicated in order give people a complete picture of who you are and what you do.  Do you stumble through this information or leave important information out?  The following script developed by Joe Stumpf at By Referral Only creates a powerful presentation when introducing yourself.

Here is an example of that script:

Hi, my name is Steven Davis.  I am an effective and energetic consultant working with the experienced professionals at North Bay Real Estate.

For the past exciting year I’ve enthusiastically and consistently focused on helping people in the Redwood Empire with their real estate needs.

I work with a dedicated team of thoughtful partners out of our well equipped office in Montgomery Village.

Rather than just rattling off a bunch of information this script presents the opportunity to share your referable qualities.  This can give a prospective client a comprehensive and compelling picture of you and your most professional qualities.

Take special notice of the adjectives that describe the type of business person you are. These adjectives serve as flags that draw attention to you and make you more referable.

Properly using the appropriate words distinguishes you from all the others and helps make you more memorable.

To make the most positive impression, you must carefully select words that accurately describe those traits that distinguish you.  Some examples of referable business and character traits are:

Accomplished

Attentive

Capable

Committed

Competent

Concerned

Creative

Credible

Decisive

Dedicated

Detail-oriented

Effective

Efficient

Energetic

Enthusiastic

Experience

Focused

Friendly

Honest

Imaginative

Influential

Informed

Knowledgeable

Motivated

Outgoing

Persistent

Proficient

Prompt

Purposeful

Qualified

Resolute

Service-oriented

Sincere

Skilled

Thorough

Thoughtful

Trustworthy

Do you feel like a good Boy Scout or Girl Scout now?  This list is not exhaustive and it certainly is all right to use different words that are more appropriate for you or for your industry.  What is important is that these words flesh you out and make you more real and powerful, thus improving the possibility of that you will be remembered and used.

So here is a script with blanks that you can fill in and modify for your presentation.

Hi, my name is_________________________________________________.

I’m a/an_________________________________________ and

___________________________________________consultant working with the

___________________________________________professionals at

___________________________________.

For the past_____________________________________ (period of time)

I’ve _______________________________________________ and

__________________________ focused on helping the people who live in

________________________________________.

My _____________________________________ team/partners

of _______________________________________________ and I work out of our

_________________________________________________offices in

_________________________________________.

Following is another example of this format to aid you in inserting your own words into this script.

Hi, my name is Robbie Stearns.

I’m an expert mortgage coach working with the talented professionals at First Mortgage.

For 24 exceptional months I have, like clockwork, willingly made my progressive mortgage advice available to the homeowners who choose to use their mortgages as a way to create wealth and security.

My committed team of four self sufficient, dynamically thinking partners work at our comfortable and pleasant-to-visit offices in the Plaza Suites.

Take the time to write out your answers in this script.  Practice aloud.  And be prepared to present yourself professionally and powerfully in your next meetings with people.  This script is only 4 sentences long, but when you have it mastered it presents you in a powerful, referable way.

Written by David Walrath

Ajalon Printing & Design

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