Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 - (Page 21)

Social Networking Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Friendster, Bebo, Classmates, etc. You’ve heard about them in the news, you’ve read about them in the paper and perhaps you’ve interacted with some of the sites yourself. Simply put these sites help people keep in touch in a number of different ways via the Internet. Facebook, MySpace and the like are focused on the social aspects of interaction, while LinkedIn is focused on managing and maintaining business contacts. Each of these sites can help your company, but with very different approaches. If you’re looking for information on a potential hire – a peek at their Myspace or Facebook page can quickly give you an idea of the caliber person you’re considering, from the kind of hobbies they have to the company they keep. If you’re looking for new hires or business contacts to help land your next contract, than LinkedIn and Plaxo can be the way to go. They provide easy-to-use networks that offer introductions to people and open doors to opportunity. Social networks such as these are also good mediums for building brand equity in your company. By creating a community of followers, and in turn following other communities, you can ‘personify’ your projects and create a community that has a vested interest in your project or service. In the event that a particular medium of new media begins to attack you, the community you have built will provide you with loyal followers and brand evangelizers. great first impression, or solidify the first impression made in an initial meeting with a client. While it is commonplace for a company to have a website of their own, the technology behind them is constantly evolving to make them easier to use, update, manage and manipulate. The introduction of many different types of Content Management Systems (CMS) built specifically to manage a website or web based application have made it easier than ever to create and manage a high performance, well-designed and up-todate website. Don’t underestimate the power of a website. Online media is the fastest to track, and there is no easier area to keep tabs on than your own website. With the right analytics you can track where users are clicking, how long they stay on a page, what web address or search engine and keywords referred them to your website and much more. With all of this information at your fingertips you can constantly refine and sculpt your website to generate the results you desire. Whether you currently manage your website in- or out-of house – it can always be valuable to use an outside firm that specializes in web development and analysis. generates leads that can be sold to local auto dealers. The other is the dealerships or manufacturers themselves. Each of the pages will have content specifically regarding extended-bed, four-wheel- drive trucks. Visitors are much more likely to click on something on one of these sites than they would if they had been steered towards the manufacturer’s main website to begin their search. These landing pages can be developed to aid your sales efforts and provide better qualified leads. They can be developed for any industry or sector, after all, all companies make money by selling something to someone. You can help your target market find you by steering them to your landing pages and launch the sales process from there. Ask an outside firm, often the same one that manages your website, to create and manage these landing pages. The testing and refinement of these pages in response to analytical data can take time but it is well worth it. Finding a good partner The key word here is partner. Don’t work with just any vendor, work with a company that will take an interest in your operation and truly partner with you. You’ll know the right ones. They’ll be focused on your goals, metrics, performance indicators and marketing and sales processes. Your first meeting will focus more on your company and its goals rather than its available budget and previous spending. Having the right team in place is critical to success, especially in an economy like the current one, which is facing numerous challenges. Create the greatest return on your marketing efforts by working with a firm that isn’t involved in a specific medium, but can create and execute campaigns that use a multitude of mediums. This will ensure that they have an unbiased opinion of where you should invest your marketing dollars and create the greatest return on your investment. SLDT About the author: Chris Yoko is managing partner of FaceTime Strategy, a full service marketing firm with offices in Dallas Texas and Washington, DC. He can be reached at cyoko@facetimestrategy.com or go to www.FaceTimeStrategy.com. Landing pages A landing page is the one that a visitor will land on when visiting your site by a method other than simply entering your main website address into their browser. They may be steered to a landing page by advertising, whether it is a TV or Radio commercial, which mentions a specific web address or by clicking on a particular search result or search engine ad. These pages are designed to increase visitor response rates by providing information specific to their particular needs. For example, if they are looking for a domestic car, they may just go to Chevy.com as a starting point. If they aren’t sure what brand of car they are searching for, they may go to a search engine and type something like “Four Wheel Drive Extended Bed Pickup.” When they hit enter a flood of links from Nissan, Dodge, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevy fill the screen. A number of these links are owned by one of two types of companies. One sort Websites A company’s website is the eye of its marketing, public relations, and often sales funnel. Almost all of today’s marketing efforts steer audiences towards the company’s website, which then provides more detailed information. Well-built websites also steer visitors towards the section they are seeking, and creates a natural call-to-action for them. Media outlets looking for information on your company will check your website before exploring other options. Potential clients and sales leads will naturally review a company before placing a contract in their hands, and your website is the best chance to create a www.SLDTonline.com 21 http://Chevy.com http://www.FaceTimeStrategy.com http://www.SLDTonline.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008 Contents Our Voice The Bottomline Editorial Board SLDT Resources Digging Deep Oases of Capital Build a Better Business on an Interactive, Virtual Landscape Regulation SLDI in Focus �� SLDI Sponsored Summit �� Workshops �� Bookstore Tee’d Up for Sustainability Retention Solutions Wastewater Redevelopment Industry News Marketplace Products/Services Showcase Advertiser Index The Last Word

Sustainable Land Development Today - September 2008

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