The internet has become the primary media outlet to find, research and buy products and services today.  Media buyers and planners are constantly debating on what is the most effective way to target these audiences with digital advertising that will result in the highest conversions maximizing the return on advertising spend (ROAS) for their advertising clients. A few digital advertising agencies have the opinion that search advertising is the most effective means of  targeting audiences based on consumer intent resulting in conversions while some are of the belief that search engine optimization is the most cost effective sales channel.

However, performance marketing must mix both strategies to achieve desired results. Large and Small businesses should use  a combination of pay per click advertising and search engine optimization to drive conversions across the entire sales funnel.

The long tail

The great recession has compelled large and small businesses to operate within tight budgets and cut costs. Though pay per click ads help increase traffic to the website and have demonstrated a return on investment for most businesses, they have become expensive. One way businesses can get higher returns from PPC ads is by focusing on the long tail and determing user intent.  Long tail keywords cost less as there are fewer competitiors bidding on them and they can also help in determining user intent so the advertiser can reflect it in their dynamic ad copys and landing pages resulting in higher conversions at lower cost per clicks.

Augmenting pay per click with SEO

 Any digital advertising strategy should be augmented with relevant keyword rich website content. This strategy automatically improves the seo ranking of the website. This enables large and small businesses to appear for relevant search terms in the organic search engine results pages thereby increasing the exposure to potential target customers.

Many new age, online advertising agencies recognize the value of this combined approach and offer a combination of search engine optimization and keyword selection services to clients.

All clicks are not customers

All PPC clicks are not the same. Large and small businesses must recognize this fact and keep it in mind when building and managing search marketing campaigns. Digital advertising companies help businesses in building online campaigns by educating them on the different  tactics based on the clients objectives. For example, if an antiques business bids on the phrase that includes the location of the store + ”antiques”  to target local area traffic only, the ad copy can still appear and generate clicks that are related to users looking for antiques information or jobs but are not buyers of antiques products. Digital advertising companies can track the keyword phrases used by majority of the users searching on the antiques related keywords and help identify the buyers based on the keyword  intent so the client can maximize its return on advertising spend. 

Smart businesses look to continuously trim their advertising waste by improving their profit margins by incorporating data to evlove their digital advertising strategies.

A small business can beat the double dip recession by reducing the consumption of resources, and optimizing time and money by outsourcing business functions and incorporating efficient systems.

1. Answering services

Many small businesses have downsized to maintain profit margins in the recession. However, downsizing should not affect the quality of customer service. Phone answering services make sure all calls are attended by trained personnel, basic questions and issues are addressed by them and only callers needing special information are directed to business experts. This allows small and mid sized businesses to devote more time and employee hours on revenue generation while keeping track of incoming calls that could be business leads.

2. Business VOIP

Small businesses can cut down costs drastically by replacing traditional PBX phone systems with partial or complete VOIP phone systems. Small and mid sized businesses can save on the costs of calling long distance customers, partners and suppliers,  and free up resources as only one network needs to be managed for voice and data transmission by using VOIP communication tools and conferencing technologies. Small business VOIP systems are scalable, easy to maintain, user-friendly and reliable.

3. Collection agencies

In lean times, many customers hold on to payments to maintain cash flow. Their gain is your loss. Bad debts can squeeze the life out of small or mid sized businesses as they rely on immediate payments to maintain daily operations. Collecting payments is a delicate task that takes up valuable time and resources. Small businesses can outsource the job to professional collection agencies to receive timely payments without hurting customer relationships.

These measures are relatively inexpensive and offer both short-term and long-term benefits for the business. A smart business implements timely solutions to overcome problems, and converts the solutions into opportunities of growth and profit.

A business that hopes to expand cannot afford to be complacent and content with its existing customer base. By limiting customer outreach, businesses limit future potential income. To help with growth and sustain revenues, businesses should add to their prospect list every day. This can be achieved through effective marketing strategies that generate more qualified sales leads and conversions.

As a small business owner, you should explore several different options to expand your customer base. Businesses have successfully tried one or all of these strategies to generate leads.

1) Customer oriented marketing

There are way too many businesses out there offering products similar to yours. To make your marketing material – newspaper ad, brochure, newsletter, email, direct mail, internet ad – stand out from the crowd, you need a headline that grabs the customer’s attention instantly. How do you do this? You do this by addressing the customer’s need. A headline such as “No more bad debts” is more noticeable than “Collection Agency“. By focusing on the customer’s immediate problem, you stand a better chance of attracting attention.

2) Measure effectiveness and weed out wasteful efforts

A business usually employs more than one marketing effort to promote its products and services. But how do you know what works best? You know this by measuring the results of each marketing effort individually. Marketing involves money, time and effort, all of which are wasted for unproductive marketing tactics. For example, a web design company may find that 90% of qualified web design leads are generated through search engine optimization and pay per click advertising online. It makes sense to cutout other strategies and focus only on what delivers the best results.

3) Use your website to attract leads

Your business website is a great opportunity to influence customers. The appearance of the website should appeal to prospects and the content should convince them of your commitment to solve their problems. The web design quote should guide customers to enter the desired information in minimal number of clicks. Contact numbers, email addresses, fax numbers and inquiry forms should be clearly displayed. A user-friendly website wins customer’s favor and leads to repeat visits and recommendations.

4) Cross marketing for increased value to customers

Cross marketing is tying up with another business that sells products and services that complement what you sell. By doing this, you offer customers a complete set of services that meet all their needs and increase your own chances of making a sale. For example, website designers can build a relationship with copywriters. A green consulting firm can tie up with a company that sells energy-efficient equipment. These symbiotic relationships offer customers one-stop solutions and cost savings – an irresistible combination.

5) Address customer’s needs through questions

The goal of any marketing piece is to generate sales leads by getting customers interested in your products or services. One strategy that works well is to ask customers about their problem and provide a solution. A direct question that hits the nail on the head gets noticed immediately. For example, a question such as “Is loss of teeth making you lose your smile?” will have greater impact than “Do you need a dentist?”

Each of the above mentioned strategies work to increase sales leads. Analyze your marketing techniques and incorporate the suggestions to fill gaps. The effort will be worth the results.

A small or mid sized business that selects a credit card processing service, solely because of its cheap merchant card processing rates, is making a grave mistake. Credit card processing fees are only a small part of the complete merchant processing solution you buy from the merchant services provider. You must evaluate the other services offered by a merchant account services provider before signing up.

Follow these guidelines to assess a credit card processing solution:

Verify the customer support

A small business may need the help of customer support often in the initial days of using the credit card machines and installed software. It is important that customer support personnel respond without delay, or you may lose the sale. A credit card processing company that has 24×7 customer support is always preferable since an immediate solution is required when you run into credit card processing issues.

Always check the quality of customer support b cuy asking for current customer references. This will give you an idea of the credit card processors attitude towards customer support, promptness of their response and what they are being charged for it.

Enquire about the security features offered for card-less transactions

Most online credit card processing agencies offer security features for card-less credit card payments to reduce the risk of credit card fraud. Security features include encryption of credit card information, address verification, IP address blocking, etc. Advanced security options make the credit card transactions safer, but may result in additional credit card processing costs. 

Understand the credit card processing fee structure

Credit card processors charge fees other than the discount fee. Make sure all the fees are included in the contract and that there are no hidden fees or ambiguous terms and conditions.

Verify the reputation

The market is full of small business credit card processing services offering cheap rates. Some of these may not be legitimate. Do not deal with a credit card processing company without checking its references. If the agency does not have any customer referrals, check out its rating with the Better Business Bureau. Any complaints or disputes against the agency should be listed here.  

Get contact names, numbers and email addresses

The merchant must have details such as the name of the credit card processor, physical address, a contact person’s name, phone number and email address. Having the contact details of other company representatives is also a good strategy to assure fast and timely response.

Contracts with credit card processing companies are usually multi-year and you would not want to be tied down with a below average merchant credit card processing company. You need to be wary of agencies that offer cheap credit card processing initially and then start springing the hidden costs. It is important to verify the reputation and research the fee structure of credit card processing leads before signing up with one that fits your business needs. A reliable and efficient credit card processor will not only help you increase sales revenues, but also provide financial protection against credit card fraud.

The first step to building an internet presence is developing a website. Then, you need to attract customers. Performance marketing services generate qualified traffic to your website with pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization ( SEO ), social media marketing solutions etc.

The internet is a truly global marketplace with over 1 billion prospective customers online. A majority of them use Google to look for information including products and services. Studies indicate that 95% of all searches result in clicks on search results that rank on the first page of Google. SEO services focus on making your website more search-friendly and increasing its seo ranking such that your website appears on the first page for relevant searches.

How does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) work?

Search engines crawl websites and index them based on several different criteria such as keywords, inbound links, etc. The search algorithms determine which websites are the most relevant for the specific search term while ranking the websites. Page ranking criteria varies based on the search engine. A website can have different page ranks on different search engines for the same search terms.

SEO companies work on websites continuously to improve page ranking; following guidelines laid down by experienced search engine marketing (SEM) experts. These best practices improve a website’s visibility in search results. Factors that contribute to make a website more search engine friendly are:

1. keyword rich content
2. effective website design
3. meta tags – title, keywords and description
4. fresh content
5. inbound links
6. navigability and accessibility in website structure

How do SEO services supplement online marketing efforts?

The internet is a constantly evolving media. To keep up, search engines frequently improve underlying algorithms to make search results more relevant to search terms. SEO service providers are always on the lookout for new keywords, emerging technologies, and better search engine optimization pricing models to offer website optimization. SEO services follow these steps to optimize websites:

1. Research the keywords

Finding the best keywords for a website is a complicated job. The popularity of a keyword has to be balanced with its competitiveness. At the same time, too many keywords should not be targeted or the impact of SEO will be diluted. Fortunately, search engines and websites provide keyword suggestion tools. SEO services may also have in-house tools to select the best keywords to optimize a customer’s performance marketing strategy.

2. Optimize the website content

SEO services strategically include keywords in the website content to increase its search engine relevancy. The keywords are used in headings, subheadings and paragraphs while keeping the content readable and compelling.

3. Inbound link building

Search engines favor a website that has many inbound links. It is taken to be proof of your website’s credibility and popularity. SEO services create articles in forums and related business websites, press releases for news websites that link to the customer’s website. They also try to get reputed websites in your business industry link to your website.

4. Monitor effectiveness of keywords and make changes

SEO is an ongoing project. The effectiveness of SEO has to be monitored constantly and content and keywords modified. An online perofrmance marketing strategy is incomplete without SEO. Customers trust organic search results more than paid searches. It is critical to optimize your website constantly to maintain business visibility and expand your customer base.

Millions of prospective customers surf the web daily giving small business an ideal platform for promoting and selling  products and services online. Great website design and content are key elements that determine how successful your website is in converting prospects to real customers.

Here are ten website design tips to help you build your website and increase your chances of success online.

Great copy
First impression is the last impression! Use attractive copy while building your website. It must effectively convey to customers what they can expect from your website and excite them about your products and services.

Effective headline on each page
Assign an intriguing and unique headline to every web page design on your site. Headlines should clearly explain the content that follows on the web page, arouse interest and make visitors want to investigate further.

Attractive website design to sustain interest
Make your website design attractive and appealing to encourage visitors to explore your products and services. A sense of appeal , elegance and mystery sustains visitor interest and ensures repeat visits to your site. The more appealing your website is to visitors, the greater your chances of turning visitors into customers.  

Persuasive language
Content tone, style and chosen copy have a significant impact on visitor perceptions about your website. Positive, persuasive and convincing language can turn even the most skeptical visitors into loyal customers while esoteric, overly exaggerated or dumbed down language can greatly lower your chances of conversion.

Clear and concise subheadings
Subheadings, popularly known as subheads, allow your customers to browse through information quickly and find what they need. Ensure your subheads are clear and concise, facilitate easy scanning of web page content and follow logically from page headlines.

Easy readability
Website content must be easy to read and understand. Avoid the use of overly technical or flowery language and poor color combinations that prevent smooth reading of content. The content should follow a logical sequence on a web page and between web pages for maximum impact.

Compelling offer and discounts
Sales or discount offers on products and services must be very visible on your site. If you do not allow customers to easily find products and services on sale, they will turn their attention to other websites, even if you have the best offers in town.

Get the word of mouth publicity
A great website can convince your customers that your business is the best place to spend their money. Impressed and satisfied visitors can help you find many new customers through free word of mouth publicity and greatly increase your sales and website success.

Add unique content
Use customer logos,  images and testimonials to establish your credibility and quality of service to new visitors. Complements help to capture visitor attention and favorably incline them towards your website, products and services.

Add Shopping cart 
If you plan to sell products or services online, add an e-commerce shopping cart to your website so that consumers can buy your products and services online, without having to step into your retail store front.

Compare website design pricing
Compare website development pricing by reaching out to multiple web designers and shopping your business requirements.

Follows these website design tips to maximize the chances of online success, increase revenues and turn your website into a profitable sales channel. 

E-commerce shopping cart is helping small business recover from the deep recession of 2008-2009, by helping them sell products through e-commerce websites and reduce the overhead costs resulting in extracting healthy profit margins. The crash of 2009 saw almost $44 billion spent on e-commerce shopping carts. And this astonishing figure is still growing at a rapid pace. The success of e-commerce as a business model can be attributed to the efficiency and convenience in buying online.

Increasing number of businesses are launching e-commerce websites as the internet is an ideal sales channel requiring no administrative staff, real estate or sales personnel. E-commerce web hosting services take away the IT overhead by offering pay as you go services for data storage and management while e-commerce shopping cart solutions handle transactions and payments.

E-commerce websites work perfectly in all markets

Most businesses have suffered the consequences of the economic crisis and are running low on funds and resources. It is to the business’ advantage to save on infrastructure and administrative costs. The internet has made the market global and competition is fierce. Businesses are compelled to tighten profit margins to stay in the market. E-commerce websites offer the perfect solution for businesses to increase sales while reducing costs.  E-commerce solutions allows businesses to be flexible where they can alter the offers, product combinations, and advertising strategies on the website at the drop of a hat.  E-commerce hosted solutions help internet businesses take advantage of evolving technology and changing internet models with minimal investment.

Hosted e-commerce solutions offer holistic e-commerce services

E-commerce website design is critical as it is the gateway through which customers can access business products and services. E-commerce companies work with businesses to create a professional website design. Apart from providing online advertising services and designing the structure of the web outlet, e-commerce hosting providers:

1. take over IT and administrative operations
2. deal with warehousing and inventory management
3. offer afforable web design quotes
4. search engine optimization tips
5. search engine optimization pricing

E-commerce companies allow businesses to focus their time, effort and money on the improvement of their goods and services.

Maturing of e-commerce business models

E-commerce businesses have shown remarkable strength in the global economic slowdown. E-commerce websites have supported businesses by ensuring a revenue stream at a time when funds are low and costs are high. Web outlets help save further by taking away IT and administrative overheads.

Customers turn to e-commerce websites looking for competitive rates.  E-commerce outlets are cheaper as they offer more compelling bargains than their retail counterparts do. Customers also save on the time and cost of driving to retail store fronts.

The upward swing in e-commerce shopping during the 2009 slowdown is an indication of the success of e-commerce solutions and their arrival in the market.  At a time when many businesses are bearing the brunt of the credit squeeze, e-commerce businesses are growing at around 15%, a figure that promises to keep going up.

The 6 best business process functions that can be outsourced to increase efficiencies and thereby  improve profit margins are:

1. Accounting

Manage your finances, maximize tax deductions, file taxes, get business and investment advice, and develop effective budgets and cash flow projects – all through the services of a Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

2. Tax Preparation

A tax preparation service can reduce tax liabilities by ensuring compliance to tax rules and timelines. They help businesses save tax wherever possible – sale or purchase of business, e-commerce transactions, disputes, and so on.

3. Website Design

A business or e-commerce website design is crucial in keeping customers engaged and encouraging repeat visits. Professionals can help with incorporating customer friendly features and functions while coming up with website development pricing for customers.

4. Search engine optimization

SEO companies help businesses achieve high organic ranking through keyword rich content, effective seo link building strategies, complying with google search engine optimization practices and search engine algorithms. They offer a variety of  packages at affordable search engine optimization pricing.

5. Internet Marketing 

Internet marketing is an effective, targeted, self-qualifying measurable way of building a brand image. Search engine marketing, social media marketing and pay-per-click advertising are all part of internet marketing. Internet marketers keep an eye on latest internet trends to take advantage of new and innovative marketing avenues.

6. Payroll

The complex task of payroll processing can be taken over by experts familiar with changing local, state and federal taxation rules, forms and processes. They enhance employee experienceand reduce payroll services cost via facilities such as direct deposit, web monitoring tools, timely pays and effective HR functions.

Businesses that outsource non-core business functions buy time and resources to focus on business growth and profit. Effects of business process outsourcing can be far reaching. The benefits will be realized even after the recession has blown over. However, it is vital that businesses do a stringent quality check on providers before partnering with them.

Insurance companies are definitely in a stronger position in the ‘payer payee’ relationship shared with healthcare providers.  They have the advantages of scale, power and a large claims database. The complexity of medical billing procedures further tips the scales towards them. Technology and the internet come to the aid of medical providers through medical billing networks, promising to level the playing field between the two players.

Insurance carriers benefit from complex medical billing process. Changing codes, rules, and procedures make filing claims tortuous and error-prone. Insurance companies pick on these errors to reject medical claims. Sometimes this happens repeatedly till the medical provider caves in and forgoes the claim. Medical practitioners lose out on a significant chunk of revenue because of this tactic.

Common tactics used by health insurance companies to delay payments

Health insurance companies take advantage of the intricacies of medical billing procedures. Some of the common strategies used by them to delay payments of medical claims are:

Picking out bureaucratic errors to reject medical claims

Most medical practitioners do not have efficient and reliable medical billing processes. Insurance companies pick out errors and omissions in the submitted claims to reject them. Almost 20% of medical claims go unpaid as a result of claim rejections and unaggressive follow-up. This cut in revenue can seriously setback the operations of a medical practice.

Low allowable amount

Insurance companies take advantage of their large size by concurring on low allowable amounts to medical practitioners. Medical providers are left with little choice but to go with the low sums of money as competing insurance companies also offer the same amount.

Post-payment refunds

Insurance companies conduct post-payment audits to correct mistaken payments and redeem them. They have access to a vast claims database and can verify records to demand post-payment refunds. This further depletes the revenue of medical practitioners.

Insurance companies have an efficient medical billing system that allows them to reduce payments to healthcare providers. The added advantage of scale makes them a tough proposition.

Medical billing networks reinforce the medical billing process

Medical billing networks consolidate the claims database of various healthcare practitioners. Medical billing companies provide the means to facilitate this network. The information of clients is combined into an efficient and accountable automated system that also offers effective records management and efficient processes. Medical providers can leverage the economies of scale to their advantage, as insurance companies have been doing since years.

Advantage of medical billing networks

Independent medical practices cannot do much on their own, but collectively they can build an effective system to combat the obstacles in getting payments from insurance payers. Medical billing services enables medical providers to do business with large-scale insurance companies on an equal footing. The networks offer the advantages of improved collections, effective revenue management, lower audit risk and added revenue sources.

All medical practices should outsource medical billing to combat large-scale insurance company tactics to deny and reject claims. Healthcare providers can use network services to maximize revenue and streamline revenue management processes.

The current times demand a diversified marketing approach that encompasses both traditional and digital advertising techniques. Though traditional media outlets such as television, newspapers and radio are still viable channels, businesses should allocate part of the marketing budget to online advertising. The challenge is striking the right balance between the two – conventional advertising and the more promising internet marketing.

Consumers continue to spend more time online. To keep in step with consumer trends, the marketing mix must also evolve and adapt to it. Business owners and executives should prepare the marketing budget based on their anticipation of the consumer trends over the next year.

Increasing importance of e-commerce in businesses

E-commerce is becoming an important channel for small and large businesses. Sometimes, there is a huge gap between the marketing budget and sales trends. This can happen in businesses that have always relied on traditional media channels and retail stores. These businesses still perceive e-commerce shopping cart solutions as a secondary sales channel rather than mainstream business model.

Many times, the most effective media  is not identified correctly by progressive marketers. The source that generates most revenue is not linked to the advertising media. Though traditional advertising techniques can be used to promote e-commerce websites of businesses, it makes more sense to advertise the site using online marketing including pay per click, search engine optimization, social media marketing etc.

The effectiveness of internet marketing is compelling due to the instant return on investment associated with the marketing spend. Recent surveys show that more than half of the businesses in U.S. are shifting marketing budgets from traditional advertising  to online.

Allocating the budget for digital advertising

The marketing executive should allocate adequate funds in the marketing budget to implement online advertising more aggressively. Before forming the marketing budget, executives should consider these figures:

1. Sales: Compare the sales from traditional and online advertising. From these figures, what can be predicted for the sales trend going into the future?
2. Profits: Compare the profit margin from the marketing mix. Should digital advertising be pushed more than traditional media?
3. Return on investment: Compare the ROI of online versus traditional media outlets. Which of the two will show a higher return on investment (ROI)?

The marketing budget and the recession

The recession has made the marketing budget more accountable. Marketing executives realize the low cost of running advertising campaigns using digital media. Audiences can also be targeted more effectively, as a result of which the conversion rates are better. The recession has played a crucial part in faster adoption of digital advertising by American companies. Contrary to traditional marketing techniques, internet advertising results are more measurable. Marketing executives can justify the costs of advertising with quantifiable results.

Internet advertising has many benefits to justify a larger percentage of the marketing budget than traditional media channels. Though traditional advertising is effective in some cases, online advertising is proving to be a more economical and effective strategy that matches the consumer trend towards digital media.