I can get that on the Internet…

Today’s budget conscious buyers are seeking every avenue to reduce their marketing budget. Unfortunately, many of these avenues lead to disappointment. Rarely can the quality of a product be seen prior to purchase, origins of the products are unclear and may hinder schedule fulfillment, and communication is limited when a service call is required.

Unclear Communication
Often the quality of a product can not be seen until the day of delivery and non-refundable payments are made. It is important to review all of the documentation on the items prior to purchase. Even when Internet communication is clear, there is still the potential for misinterpreting item specs, pricing, and requirements.


Dealing locally allows you to see samples and test products before making an investment. Local marketing firms can request sample items to be delivered to their showroom where you can see, touch, and review the item first hand. Additionally, marketing firms will have designers on staff to assist with assuring that your corporate marks are ready for press and will reproduce in the highest quality possible on any item you choose.


I’m buying from a local company, right?
One product can be produced by 10’s of 100’s of different vendors at different prices. They could be around the corner or around the world. Which vendor used typically depends on the deadline and budget. When ordering through the Internet the ability to choose where a product is being ordered from is limited. There is also a disconnect in a very important facet of promotional products distribution, safety awareness. With the rise of awareness of lead-based pigments used in certain regions, it is important to assure that ones corporate image and community stays safe from potential disasters.

Did you know industry and manufacturing stops for a week during Chinese New Years for most manufactures in China? This puts all orders on hold wasting precious time. Though this is not a concern most of the year, it becomes a very bad experience when your delivery date is during that period. Your local marketing firm takes account for changes in the market and will make adjustments necessary to assure your product is delivered on time. For the Chinese New Years the solution may be choosing a vendor that has proven to be a reliable source. Web based stores do not provide that option on their order form.


A local marketing firm also employs professionals that constantly review the market and will provide the most economical solution while assuring that the safety, quality, and value of the product is retained. Additionally, your company can assure that corporate image and culture is maintained by working directly with a promotional products professional that will keep your corporate values in mind.


I’m not calling to order more; I want to know where my order is…
Most turnkey cheap Internet solutions make it difficult to communicate with a human being. The site is built as a 1, 2, 3 process with not option of “4. I need help.” Or worse, the extent of the help is subjecting customers to countless lines of customer service FAQ or forums where no answers are provided.


Again, working with a local marketing firm resolves this issue. There is a representative ready for your call. The firms have direct access to vendor support not made available to the general public. Most importantly, the firm will avoid working with vendors that have a proven track record or providing poor customer service and poor products. This system of vendor review allows your organization to benefit from real-time price comparison and prevent unexpected delays.


Building Marketing Relations
Regardless of one’s industry, their comes that inevitable customer response, “I can find this cheaper on the Internet.” However, there is a vast difference in the cheapness of a product and the value. I provide the highest level of customer services while delivering the best value. Communication is the key, an Internet site will take your order; however, it rarely has the ability to follow through with quality customer relations and support. Call Robert at 713-805-3775 to discuss ideas and options for your promotional products needs.

Other services such as banners, brochures, stationary, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, magnets, vehicle wraps, web design, social marketing, and e-mail marketing is available.

Free Software That Enhances Business Process

I am not an advocate of free software. More specifically those known as “warez” in the Internet circles. In my early years, I tested and used many with near catastrophic results. If the software were not riddled with viruses they were just so poorly written that they would stop your computer entirely. That said, this blog is a focus on those that make our business lives easier and keep the wheels turning. More importantly, how to keep those wheels turning requires applying a little grease from time to time. This is a first of a series on free software that enhances business process. Enjoy and I look forward to your feedback.


As I mentioned before, similar experiences have made people reluctant to update when they receive the notices that an application has an update. Updates happen for a few reasons and mainly because of feature enhancements. Additionally, companies produce patch updates that fix bugs and patch known security flaws. That second part is very important.

The first software is well known and used throughout the world. It is Adobe Acrobat Reader produces by Adobe Software, a giant in the world of graphic design and layout applications. Acrobat Reader, for short, is a free counterpart for Acrobat Pro. The pro version allows users to produce PDF files. PDFs are a universal file format (by way of Acrobat Reader) of sharing documents and being confident that the end user sees exactly what the document was intended to look like. Simply, PDF files remove the dependence on fonts and image links. It’s the format of choice for proofing over via e-mail. PDF files have become so prominent that other applications, such as Microsoft Word 2006 and higher, have included it as a format that it can save to. Many other software have done the same. Web developers can even retrieve data and generating PDF documents on the fly. This automated advancement has lead way to enhanced product spec sheet generation and even automated variable print solutions.

Now that you see the power of PDF you may be asking yourself what do I need to create and read PDF files. If you want to create PDF files you may want to check your current software and see if you already have the capabilities. Look under your “File Save As” and check the drop down for “Adobe PDF” or “PDF” for a file version. Or look for and “Export” or “Export to PDF” function. If either of these are the case, you are good to go. Simply create your PDF, preview it to assure that the conversion went correctly and e-mail. It’s as simple as that.

Acrobat Pro is a robust software that allows you to perform extra task with PDF like creating forms, compiling multiple PDF files into a single multi-page PDF, and even minor edits. Beware, don’t buy Acrobat Pro as a tool to edit PDF files, it’s not as robust in this field as everyone would like it to be. It is always better to go to the native application, make your change, and recreate a PDF with the new changes than trying to stumble through Acrobat Pro’s editing features.

Pro DOES have one great feature that is rarely used, in my experience. This feature is the document proofing tools that allow parties to collaborate and make proofing marks and requests on pages. With Pro, you can make notes, post stickies, draw arrows and everything that and editor would do with a red pen. This allows multiple people to make edit request on one document to request changes. Simply markup your changes, save the file and send it to the next person to make edits or revisions.

Now, where do you get these tools? First, this series is about free software that enhances business processes. Acrobat Pro is not free, you may purchase it from http://www.adobe.com. If you already own one of the Adobe Creative Suite software packages you already have Acrobat Pro. With Pro you can read and make PDF files.

Acrobat Reader, which is the focus of this article, is a free download from Adobe at:

http://get.adobe.com/reader/?promoid=BUIGO

You will frequently get update reminders and notices that Acrobat Reader has received an update. I suggest updating regularly to assure that your reader is current with what ever features that Acrobat Pro is producing.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and look forward to your feedback. Check back later for more articles about free software that enhances business processes.

Cardinal rules

• Use text instead of graphic links when possible: always include alternative text links for all graphic links on a page. This is both important for SEO and developing a site that is easy to navigate by screen readers and other tools commonly used by the visually impaired.
• Be accurate and consistent in all forms of marketing: print, web, and network marketing. Use the same terminology in each so the public becomes accustom to referring to your services and products in a similar fashion. This will increase the odds that when they are looking for you they will use terms that will be found in your site
• Do not use frames: frames result in visitors being sent to incomplete pages. Though still valuable tools for advanced web development, frames should not be used for site layout
• Avoid web page redirects: search engines may ban a site that uses this practice
• Do not try to trick search engines: Do not use hidden text or invisible copy
• Keep terms pertinent to the purpose of the site: do not be miss leading information to get search results
• Tell the target market that you are there: do not rely only on the web site to attract people. Continue a strong print and network marketing campaign and ALWAYS include the URL on everything.
• Limit the use of multi-media and Flash based graphics: new browsers are catching up with the technology; however, a large percentage of the internet population do not update their software or load the necessary plug-ins to allow the embellishments to operate correctly. Further, search engines either cannot or have very limited ability of searching content in multi-media objects.
  

The Basics

• Research your current market and determine how it addresses your product or service. Do not get caught up trying to develop key words that the market will need to know. For example, a product by the name of the “MgT-440 PowerHouse”, may simply be referred to by the market as a “industrial bushing.” Make sure both appear on the page.
• Develop a list of keywords based on the terminology of the industry, market, and company vocabulary that reflects the organization’s product or service
• Employ the services of a creative/technical writer to develop marketing copy that will include the list of words while attracting the interest of potential customers
• Assure that every page has complete title, description, and keywords unique to the purpose of the page
• Give every photograph alternative text that describes the photo and supports the purpose of the page
• Revise copy regularly, total site copy changes is suggested annually. However, high traffic and popular pages should be revised more frequently depending on the content available.
• Take part in collaborative link exchanges. This does not mean create a page of links to other sites. Those are all but ignored now days. It means work with your vendors, distributors, and affiliates and develop strategies to weave their links into the pages of your site. Make sure they link back to your site.
• Use a reliable analytic (web statistic) program that provides unbiased feedback of your site’s traffic. Make sure that every page of your site is being monitored and perform regular statistic analysis to determine the optimum structure of your site. The public will ultimately determine what is the most important information that they are interested in. Blue Jungle’s experienced team of marketing professionals are able to perform routine statistic analysis and develop strategies that will take advantage of your site’s traffic patterns.
  

How Search Engines Work

• Search vs. Directory - not all search sites on the internet are the same. A directory, like Yahoo!, is like a phone book that indexes sites in a categorized list of searchable sites. Search engines, like Google, scour the open web looking for anything that may match the proposed query. Both will list sites of interest for free, if the site posses the correct characteristics and provide a unique identity that allows it to be indexed.
• Indexing – This is a practice of previewing a page(s) of a site and systematically saving content. This allows search engines to increase the speed at which they return results. The result is that sites that have a higher indexing rating result in higher listing in the search results.
• What do they index – This is not as clear cut as it sounds. Search engine developers constantly revise the equation so that their system is not manipulated. In the early days, search engine simply looked at meta tags, or more simply stated, the title of the page, keywords impregnated in the hidden code, and the description. However, developers quickly caught on and were able to adjust accordingly. Now, the entire site is reviewed and the priority or importance of what is indexed is contently changed.
• Indexing expanded – Now that indexing is addressed, it’s important to understand something about the process. Once a site is indexed it’s in the system for an undisclosed period of time. However, once it is indexed the search engine rarely looks at it again. The theory is that the more often a page is indexed, the higher its search rating could be. To increase indexing, it’s important that pages frequently change content so that the next time the engine looks at it it does not recognize the same old page. Again, the frequency that engines index are closely kept trade secrets. To avoid excess work and keep your customer happy, it is advised to change out and entire site annually and revise frequently visited pages at least on a monthly basis.
  

The Black List – Things That May Get Domains Banned From Search Results

• Misleading pages or redirects to a pages that have nothing in common with the initial search
• Hiding copy or making it invisible through means of advanced coding or making text the same color as the background.
• Including pages inappropriate for the general public
• Reuesting to be listed too often, or too many times. What’s too many? Only the search engine owners know.
• Purposely searching for your site to increase rankings or any other artificial process of increasing traffic results will get you black listed.

Avoid the Myths

• Myth 1: The guarantee of higher search rankings: Search engine companies control the equations; no one company can guarantee search engine optimization. They can only take steps to improve the potential of a site by using the basic steps and following the cardinal rules above.
• Myth 2: Paid listings increase visibility: If you pay a search engine to list you they will, is a myth. The larger engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN do not guarantee placement only consideration. This money is best spent on direct marketing efforts to your industry. Now, this is not the same as Ad Word Campaigns and Banner advertising both can help spread the word; however, it’s wise to work with an experienced marketing team to avoid wasted money and potential hazards. You do not want to being paying two cents for each time the word “bushing” is being searched when the next USA Idol Music star “Bushing Grant” hits the charts.
• Myth 3: Seed your site with current events because that is what people are looking at: If I plant current popular keywords that people are using I’ll attract more traffic. The truth, you may attract traffic. Search engines frown on this practice and could result in having your domain black listed (banned from the search). Make sure that all content in the site is pertinent to the operation, business, and services of your company. However, an experienced marketing writer may be able to develop a message that will promotes your product in relation to current events.