Foursquare tells you who is visiting your business

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

iphone with fourquare appI’ve been using Foursquare for a number of months and introducing it during our marketing seminars to small businesses. It’s a location-based social network that runs on your mobile phone and allows you to tell your friends where you’re at, and meet up with others at the same place. It’s also a great way to discover new places around you while traveling or exploring.

This ability to discover new places and spread the word about your favorite places makes Foursquare a natural marketing and promotion tool for food and entertainment venues that thrive on foot traffic.
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The Flash vs HTML Debate Explained by Apple’s Steve Jobs

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Over the years, we’ve created some pretty hot flash sites. Heck, just last year, we redesigned and relaunched a beautiful portfolio site for our pals at LuckeYou — an awesome broadcast and animation production studio in New York. While flash sites can work well for creative firms to show off their creativity, they aren’t the best route for small businesses who are trying to expand their reach and visibility online. More and more, we are standing firm on our belief that a site that is fully enclosed in Flash is not a smart solution in the long term. Thankfully, we now have a terrific rant from Steve Jobs himself, a plain-speak explanation as to why Apple has avoided integrating flash into their devices. And hey, why wouldn’t you want to apply the same strategic thinking that one of the world’s most successful brands employs? (more…)

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Getting started with Google Analytics

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

If you’re responsible for sale operations in your small business, you probably keep track of various metrics. For example, the number of returns, phone calls, or even how customers hear about you. If you’ve designed your website to be goal-oriented, as we preach so often here at Juicy Results, you can take metrics to a whole new level. (more…)

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What’s the first thing I should do to get my local business online?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Simply put, make sure everyone who is looking for you can find you. And, that means showing up on the maps on Google and Yahoo. The yellow pages of yesterday have been replaced by online searches. And, while it can be a mighty task to improve how high you appear on the list, it is quite easy to make sure you appear in focused searches. (more…)

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SEO explained for small businesses

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Search engine optimization is one of those items that evokes confusion and debate, with as many opinions as their are practitioners. We get asked to explain how it works by just about every client, and it can be difficult to relay the subtleties and theories that we use to build rankings.

I often compare it to professional networking or losing weight, as it isn’t rocket science, but it does require a sustained effort of many different types of activities. And, when you don’t see results immediately, it can be difficult to maintain your effort level. (more…)

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Spread your contests + promos like Wildfire

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Let’s be honest, a really good promotion or sweepstakes can pay for itself many times over if it gets your product in front of enough potential customers. Until now, running a promotion or contest on the web took a massive amount of coordination and brute effort to broadcast out quickly at launch.

And, I can tell you from experience that building an online sweepstakes from scratch comes with headaches, including legal requirements and security concerns. It would be great to outsource all of this to someone who already has it handled. (more…)

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Can customers right around the corner find you?

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Imagine this, you’re on a road trip trip to St. Augustine with the family, and the others in the car are starting to get hungry. You’re still a few hours away from the hotel, but you’re in a town you’ve never visited. Do you settle for what’s advertised on the exit signs? Are there even any restaurants on the exit signs?

If you’re like many people today with a GPS device, you’re going to punch in a request for nearby restaurants. Or, you’ll use a web-enabled smartphone to run a similar search on Google maps. You might even be specific and look for a Greek or Italian spot. Regardless, you’ve got a car full of people to feed who will welcome a 30 minute escape from their car seats, and you need somewhere convenient, comfortable and within everyone’s budget. (more…)

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