LSF Interactive and Geary Group, two successful search marketing agencies, recently merged to create a new entity called Geary LSF Group, and they are busy growing their enterprise. The partnership was only announced at the end of the spring, and Geary LSF Group has already announced that they are acquiring another firm to help grow their service offerings. The group has acquired 15miles, a local search marketing leader, in order to expand their expertise and capabilities in local, social and mobile engagement for the digital market.

What This Means for Geary LSF Group

The teams at LSF Interactive and Geary Group both brought a great deal of search marketing knowledge and experience to the table, and are able to offer a wide range of digital services to clients across the globe. The team at 15miles had something unique to offer Geary LSF Group clients, though, and the newly merged firm saw an opportunity to better serve their current clients and attract a broader range of new clientele in the future. The local, mobile and social marketing experts at 15miles will bring not only a new level of knowledge and expertise to the Geary LSF Group; they will also bring about 30 new brands to the client roster and greatly augment the firm’s digital marketing network.

Response from the 15miles, Geary and LSF Teams

There was plenty of excitement from the teams at LSF Interactive, Geary Group and 15miles, which are now part of the same family. The so-called SoLoMo revolution, which has been propelled forward by consumers’ rapidly increasing use of tablet devices and smartphones, is now dominant in the search landscape, according to Daniel Laury, president and CEO of Geary LSF Group, who added that the partnership will considerably increase their capabilities for enabling both local retailers and international brands to optimize their digital customer engagement practices.

Since 15miles has been recognized nationally for its innovations and expert abilities in the social, local and mobile search marketing landscape, it’s clear why LSF Interactive and Geary Group would want to acquire the firm. But what’s in it for 15miles? Apparently, a lot, according to Gregg Stewart, President of 15miles. According to Stewart, Geary LSF’s deep and broad knowledge and expertise when it comes to digital marketing will let the 15miles team put together integrated digital marketing campaigns for clients. The team at 15miles is “delighted” to be joining forces with Geary LSF, because the firm has been recognized as a global leader in Internet marketing.

Many entrepreneurs believe that having a great product or service is all that is needed to run a successful business. Nothing could be further from the truth. While having a great product is important, nobody will buy from you if they don’t know you exist. Marketing your small business is the key to enjoying successful sales and profits and succeeding as an entrepreneur.

Affiliate Marketing

Leveraging the power of your own virtual sales force is the driving principle behind affiliate marketing. This form of marketing works by generating referrals to your company from other companies. In this model, for example, a blogger will create an article giving a positive review of your company. When a viewer makes a purchase based on that review, you pay the blogger a small commission, which encourages them to write even better reviews. This can bring in tons of revenue for your business with little effort on your part.

The newest trend in affiliate marketing is mobile marketing. More customers than ever are using their mobile devices to access information and make purchases. By branching out into mobile marketing with apps, you can increase your profit margin exponentially.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is growing at an astounding rate, with more users than ever using social media sites to interact with others. New trends in social media include creating brands and interacting with fans on social sites. Social media has the power to go viral, creating an ongoing marketing force for your business. Leverage the power of social media by creating a presence on popular sites and reaching out to your audience.
Referral based plans for social media marketing depend on your ability to get your customers talking. When they love your product, they will tell their friends. Word of mouth is the gold standard in marketing because it gives your name credibility. People may not trust an advertisement, but they trust a positive recommendation from a friend.

Get Professional Help

Creating the right marketing program for your small business is a complex process. Entrepreneurs can find it a challenge to stay ahead of ever-changing trends in the arena. With a professional marketing firm, you can enjoy professional marketing plans that increase your business visibility and bring maximum profits to your company. Marketing can be extremely time-consuming. Let the professionals do the hard work while you concentrate on running your company. Firms like MediaWhiz can tailor a specific plan for your business, creating a company portfolio that meets your marketing needs.

Marketing services like branding, mobile advertising, affiliate marketing and social media presence creation will grow your business to include new customers who will serve as free marketing agents. When your company offers great content, your customers will share it with their friends, generating even more revenue for your business. Demand more from your marketing dollars with plans that target your specific customer.

Keeping up with the latest in marketing trends can be tricky. By understanding the latest marketing techniques and hiring a firm that gets results, you will see your business grow and flourish.

It is possible to turn any idea into a business. Hoola hoops and yo-yos are two examples of seemingly insignificant ideas that became popular without advertising. The products themselves attracted attention, and people bought them. Unfortunately, the manufacturers went out of business as quickly as they began.

Ideas that turn into successful businesses must offer products and services that possess quality and satisfy a need or want. A business cannot survive without providing products that people are willing to pay a reasonable price.

An example of an idea turning into a massive business is Signtronix. Anyone can make a sign that advertises products. That idea has been in the business world for generations. However, to create another sign requires imagination. There has to be a new idea that is completely different from all other signs. In addition, that sign must attract attention, and say something that advertisers want to say.

The idea is born, and imagination is applied so that something new is created that can survive in the competitive world. What is the next step?

In starting any business, you should cover all of the legal requirements. You should secure patents or copyrights, and be certain that all city, county and state laws are being obeyed.

The next step is to make a business plan to determine the capital needs. After determining the capital needs, planners should look for markets to develop a cash flow. The plan should determine how long it will require to establish a sufficient cash flow to support the business. This step will determine the time of business that may be financed.

If one person can raise enough capital to fund the business, he or she may establish a sole-proprietorship. If additional funds are needed, the owner may seek partners. If the required funding is too large for an indicial, he may sell shares and form a corporation.

Another innovative way to raise capital is to use an Employee Stock Option Plan. It isn’t surprising that Signtronix chose this type of business organization because it indicates imagination. A major benefit of the ESOP is that the employees own the company and, therefore, share in the profits and losses. All employees are concerned with operating efficacy because it directly affects both products and profits.

Once the idea has turned into a business, new ideas are needed to keep it operating. No business can stand still and succeed. Every business has competitors that are constantly looking for new products and for ways to improve old products. Only new and better ideas will beat the competition. Every new business begins with an idea. The idea involves something new or makes improvements in something old. The entrepreneur recognizes opportunity as he or she sees the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Some entrepreneurs may seize the opportunity to make the hoola hoops and yo yos, but most know that they must have products that supply quality needs and wants for their businesses to become massive businesses.

Anyone who has faced the enormous obstacles of starting their own business while sipping on a cup of Starbucks coffee or reading an email or two from an Apple computer should know that the struggle to make it in the competitive business world is not impossible - take Starbucks and Apple, for example.

Many years ago, a group of men invested nearly everything they had in a garage-based computer production venture. One of those men was Steve Jobs. After selling anything from their cars to calculators, they scraped up enough capital to start working with about 50 orders. Skip ahead a few decades. Apple has become the fastest growing company in history. With an annual revenue of billions of dollars and lucrative business in dozens of countries around the world, Apple is a poster child for a small business that can make it.

Somewhere else many years ago, a small band of modest school teachers spent all they had (and some loans to boot) to invest in a small, quaint little coffee shop - Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spice. Currently, Starbucks Coffee is in nearly every city across the globe, and makes billions of dollars a year through sales, sponsorship, and marketing.
But how did this happen? What was so special about these investors that skyrocketed their businesses into infamy across the world, that created a company so vast and so enormous that there’s still no end in sight for either of these powerhouse? How much effort did they spend making business models and company plans, investing, marketing, and saving? The answer is, to put it simply, a lot.

Any company who genuinely wants to become a type of business like these companies needs to know that the amount of time, energy, and innovation needed to succeed is almost infinite. Every available amount of knowledge and energy must be used to fuel market research, fund entrepreneur relations, and most importantly, create customers. None of this comes easy, but entrepreneurs such as Pepe Fanjul have and will continue to use this type of model to succeed.

The business models of companies like Apple and Starbucks are as precise as they are thorough. If a company can’t understand and utilize the business within their zip code, how are they going to tackle the differentiating cultures, companies, and customers of the city, the state, the nations? Those considering starting a business, even one out of the garage, can succeed if they pay careful attention to the specific tools and resources available to them.

The major startup capital for most of these companies came from outside investors, and continued by sustaining relationships with those above the company until they reached the top. If you want to be great, follow those who already are. If you want a big, global company, use the tools and resources big global companies did. You just might make it into the big 500.

Social media has transformed how those in developed societies communicate. While some lament the dropping popularity of telephones and other old communication methods, the shift appears to be increasing communication between friends. For those in the business field, social media is quickly becoming the best way to reach potential customers online, and young people are uniquely suited to taking advantage of what the platforms have to offer. Here are some tips.

Make attractive pages?

Current social media platforms are far more restrictive than older platforms, and many experts are crediting these clean appearances with their success. Myspace, for example, is largely believed to have failed because it gave users too much power to customize their pages. Young entrepreneurs are encouraged to remember this when creating their properties; the page should be clean and professional.?

There should, however, be hints about the branding and motifs that are used to make the business stand out. The logo is the most important part of the page, so those running the page are encouraged to ensure that the logo looks great on both desktops and smart devices.

Make connections?

The most challenging part of the process is to gain followers. When using Twitter, it is generally acceptable to search through users’ comments and follow those who may be interesting in what the business has to offer. Too much following, however, will trip Twitter’s alerts and can possible put the account at risk.?

Facebook, however, is a bit trickier to use; the best way to find followers is to run promotional events and post great content that is likely to be shared. Offering to donate to a charity once enough users “like” the page can help, and offers of discounts or even free products work as well. It is also possible to create great content that followers will share with their friends; especially good content can spread through several levels of accounts and reach a tremendous number of viewers.?

If the source page is strong, this tactic can gain a large number of followers quickly.

Find a niche and post great content

After working at Oracle, noted CEO?Charles Phillips?found a niche area in enterprise resource planning software and used it to grow his company Infor quickly and in a sustainable manner. Too often, entrepreneurs think that social media is more different from traditional business tasks than it actually is; finding a niche and posting great content is the key to keep followers engaged and to find new followers.?

Social media also provides a valuable tool that many fail to take advantage of: feedback. Comments are likely to lead to new ideas about how to better refine the company’s niche and ideas about great content to post. Further, this feedback can lead to great examples of customer interaction visible to the public.

Search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising are still the two most utilized techniques that are used by young professionals, and these two field will continue to be crucial elements for online business. Social media, however, holds the promise of being able to surpass these two fields. Young entrepreneurs are encouraged to create their social media platforms while the field is still relatively young.

The Internet’s affect on business has revolutionized nearly every aspect of a company’s day-to-day activities. Previous techniques have been changed, augmented and even abandoned, and those who fail to adapt to these fluctuations are often left behind. While many often focus on the beneficial aspects of the Internet, others fail to realize how certain aspects of the online age can negatively impact a business, and it is often older business managers who are negatively affected.

Here are some of the ways young entrepreneurs can gain an advantage over their older competitors:

* SEO and a company’s success

Search engine optimization (SEO) practices are becoming a cornerstone to successful business management. While large companies sometimes have a client base that creates their online profile for them, most companies will need to put forth a dedicated effort to form and maintain their online presence.

SEO is the art of improving a company’s results in the search engines, and the field is constantly changing. With great search engine results for the right keywords, businesses can find new customers who use their ever-growing list of Internet devices to find companies. Older companies often have management teams that focus on keeping their existing customer base and using offline advertisement campaigns to stay afloat; younger business entrepreneurs can use SEO to pull ahead.

* Online reputation management

Even old business operators who are stuck in their traditional ways understand the importance of gaining and maintaining a strong reputation. What many fail to realize, however, is how important the Internet is to this reputation. Through social media platforms and other online resources, reputations are made, fostered and destroyed online, and those who run businesses will want to be proactive and ensure that their reputations stay strong by using dedicated teams from companies such as ReputationManagers.com.

With smart phones, potential customers are looking at online reviews and making decisions while on the go; businesses that fail to maintain a strong reputation will lose customers who find negative information online. Most clients do not know about a company’s history or experience, and young entrepreneurs can use reputation management techniques and services to gain and retain customers.

* Social media and other interactive platforms

SEO and reputation management are being changed by the dominance of social media platforms. With hundreds of million of active users, Facebook and Twitter are becoming the primary communication platforms for young people in developed societies. By taking steps to help encourage positive discussion about a business on these platforms, entrepreneurs can create a buzz that leads to valuable online word-of-mouth communication, and these positive reviews can grow and spread even more quickly than tradition word-of-mouth activity.
Additionally, targeted promotional material that is humorous or insightful has a chance of being shared among groups of friends and can sometimes go “viral” across the platform. Effective social media advertising campaigns are hard to create, but they are tremendously effective when they work.

* Custom online interfaces

Customers are demanding new, online ways to interact with a company. With a bit of creativity and some work, entrepreneurs can create online portals to connect customers with the business. Online storefronts are useful, and entrepreneurs can gain an advantage over competitors by ensuring easy mobile access. Further, companies can consider creating specialized apps for various smart device platforms that encourage potential customers to use their services. New browser technology has made websites far more dynamic than those of the past, so there is tremendous room for growth and innovation online.

The Internet revolution is still in full swing, and the opportunities for using the Internet to grow as a business are as open as ever. Increasingly, however, maintaining a company’s online presence is becoming a necessity to succeed. The days when Internet properties could be viewed as luxuries have ended, and young entrepreneurs will need to use the Internet as a primary means of communication.

Marketing

You can out just about anything on a business card these days including social media profiles, QR codes, websites ect.. They are excellent marketing vehicles for your business, especially if you go to as many events that I do.

Follow up

When giving out business cards of course I will get some in return. I usually have a box at home I put them in for keeping. But when I get a business card from someone I usually write a few impactful notes about the person on the back, this will help me remember what I was talking to them about for later follow up.

Build a Contact Database

When I get home after an event, and before I put my cards in the box, I snap shots of them using CamCard for my android phone. It puts it right into my phone’s contacts and then syncs back to my gmail. This is huge for building a contact database which is great for future business.

There are a lot of places to go to buy business cards online and in person. Just make sure you don’t skimp on quality to save some cash. These cards are a direct reflection of you and how much you care about your business. Make sure you buy the best and most creative cards that you can!

Now my great friends at UPrinting.com have agreed to run a contest for some lucky reader to win 250 die-cut business cards to the person who can leave the best story on how getting a business card from someone led to a big business deal!

Some details on the Contest:

It is open to US residents only.

Sizes to choose from:

2 x 3.5″ Rounded Corners, 2×2″ Rounded Corners, 1.75×3.5″ Rounded Corners, 2×3.5″ Leaf, 2×3.5
Rounded one corner, 2×3.5″ Half Circle Side, 2×3.5″ Oval, 2.5″ Circle

Paper to choose from:

14pt Cardstock Gloss / Matte / High Gloss (UV), or 13pt Cardstock Uncoated,

Front and back printing

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