On November 8th, I had the honor of being invited by 5 Seasons to talk about LinkedIn at their monthly networking event. I happened to record it and the replay is below. Enjoy!  

Replay of my Speech at 5 Seasons on November 8th is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

I am in the process of getting a podcast going on my DaytonPulse.com site and am actively looking for guests. This will be a small business oriented podcast and will be posted on the site once a week. It will be in an interview style format and will be about 20 minutes long. The podcast will be done by phone call which will be recorded and then added to the site. This will be a tremendous opportunity to brand you as the expert
and get some free publicity for your business. If you are interested, email me at cscarpero@gmail.com and we can work out the scheduling details.

Would you like to be a guest on my new podcast? is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

I recently posted an incredibly unscientific poll on Facebook.

My question is:

How many times in the past 12 months have you purchased goods and services advertised in the printed Yellow Pages?

The results and comments that I'm getting do not surprise me. So far, everyone is voting Zero. It's pretty much the same thing that I hear every day from people that I talk to in real life.

If you are a business who is still putting a lot of money in the Yellow Pages, my question to you is "Why are you still doing it?"

View Poll

My Unscientific Yellow Page Poll is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Facebook Fan Pages are all the rage in local business marketing right now. If you are not building a following using Facebook, what are you waiting for? They are at 500 million users and growing!

However, there's a right way and a wrong way to use Facebook Fan Pages. Do it wrong and you will waste your time and your money.

If you have followed my other articles, I suggest that you have the basics out of the way before you tackle Facebook Fan Pages.

Those things are:

• Having a website with a  blog
• Having email lead capture systems set up

If you have the basics set up, it's a lot easier to keep up with your Facebook Fan Page. You can post to your blog and the link to that content will go right to Facebook (if you have it set up correctly.) Having a Fan Page that nobody sees isn't going to do you any good!

Next, you want to customize your Fan Page a bit. I like using the free FBML app that Facebook has. This allows FBML (Facebook's internal coding language) on the Fan Page so it looks a lot better.

You need to be encouraging your Fan Page visitors to "Like" your page. Studies have shown that putting an arrow pointing to your "Like" button will increase your "Likes" significantly.

You should also be using your Fan page to direct Fans to your email lead capture system. The best way to accomplish this is by giving away a free report related to your industry. If coupons are used in your business, they make a great incentive as well.

Once this is done, it's time to promote the page. The next step is to invite all your friends to check out your Fan Page. Here an article that shows how to invite all your friends at once to your Fan Page.

Once you have invited your friends, then its time to invite people you don't know to check out your Fan Page. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Link to it from your profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
• Link to it from your website or blog
• Advertise the Fan Page it on your business cards
• If you have a store, please a flyer at the cash register inviting people to the Fan Page
• Put your Fan Page link on your credit card receipts
• Buy advertising on Facebook to direct people to the Fan Page

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, you're right, it is. Ask us how we can help you today with your Facebook presence.

Building Your Facebook Fan Page The Right Way is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Today, I attended the Whiteboard training session put on by the Ohio Rainmakers group. It was about 2 hours long and went through several excellent marketing concepts. I’m going to share one with you right now.

They showed a picture of a funnel:

It’s all about the Law of Permission. What is the law of permission? It’s simply getting someone to raise their hand to send you more information about their business.

It starts with a database, then goes to blog/social media. Then, you hace a face to face interaction and they become a cutomer. The customer becomes a referral and finally your referral source becomes an evangelist.

This is word of mouth marketing at its finest and the most cost effective form of advertising that you can have.

Sadly, most business owners don’t get this at all. They spend all their time in advertising and sales mode while churning through short term customers and aren’t building deep relationships.No wonder so many businesses are going broke. Please learn this stuff if you don’t know it already. It can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

If all this went right over your head, maybe you should attend the next Rainmakers Whiteboard Meeting. Rainmakers does them every month for free at Groundz4Living at The Greene. See www.RainOhio.com for details.

Lesson’s Learned At Today’s Rainmakers Whiteboard Session is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

It’s another snowed in day here in West Carrollton. My son has been off school the past couple of days, so I’m not getting much work done.

Yesterday, I had the “thrill” of shoveling several inches of snow off of my insanely steep driveway. Luckily, I didn’t have to shovel for long because someone came by and offered to shovel my driveway for me. I happily accepted.

I have this strange knack for attracting the shovelers every time it snows. They usually manage to show up right when I’m at the point of maximum frustration. It’s a little crazy sometimes. We live in a little cul-de-sac, so it’s not like a lot of people come by our house normally.

Anyway, I always say yes to whoever has the shovel. I don’t even negotiate. The wife says I’m overpaying, but honestly, I just want the driveway to get done.

So, what’s the marketing lesson here? They are in the right place (my house) at the right time (when I really, really want to get the snow shoveled).

My question to you is this…

Are you in the right place online when people are needing you? How quickly can they find you? When the need strikes, it could be a very quick need. If it takes them more than 30 seconds to find you, it’s too long!

Something to think about while you shovel the snow today.

Marketing Lessons From Dayton’s Snowy Weather is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Like many of you, I watched the Super Bowl last night. Of course, I also watched the ads and now it’s the day after and it’s time to rate the performance of them.

I went to the USA Today ad rater site and while I agree pretty much with their findings of which ads are the funniest, I personally like to think of this from a marketing perspective. Which one do I think made the biggest impact for the company’s $2 million investment and which ones were blah.

From a humor standpoint, I certainly did think the Betty White Snickers commercial was funny. But, at the same time, it didn’t really do as much as it could to make the Snickers people money. No website to go to. Just eat more Snickers. It was good branding for their product I guess.

From a pure impact standpoint, I think the Tim Tebow ad did the best. It was clear and simple. Go to our website and join our cause. And sure enough, many people did go to their website and join their cause.

I also liked the Go Daddy commercials for the same reason. The message was clear. Go to our website and learn more about what we do. Oh yeah, look at some hot chicks while you are there too.

Think about this in your advertising. Are you trying to be funny or are you trying to make money? Are you giving them a clear message on what to do next that you can track immediately?  I would suspect that making money would be at the top of your list. Something to think about…

What We Can Learn From the Super Bowl Ads is a post from: Dayton SEO Services

Here’s a nice introduction to RSS feeds. I will be posting some Twitter tutorials soon and it’s very important that you understand what RSS is and how it works. Enjoy!

What is an RSS Feed? is a post from: Dayton SEO Services