Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Redesigned IBR Website Lounched Today!

We are pleased to announce the launching of IBR System’s new and improved website. Please go to www.ibrsystems.com where you will find a wealth of information geared at increasing your business’s bottom line.

Among our many business solutions, you will have access to:

You will note that this new and improved website was entirely created with DHTML compliance – no other website firm in Orlando uses an exclusively CSS-based design on their company website! We invite you to enter our Orlando Web Designer’s Challenge and help identify other Orlando-based web design firms that use a CSS-based design for their website.

We have also added a Blog [one you are reading now] where you will be able to find up-to-date information on the industry, tips, notes from locally offered seminars, and where you will be able to share your own web-development experiences.

Finally there is a section dedicated to community involvement on this new and improved website where you will be able to keep with IBR System’s contributions to the Orlando Community and its non-for-profit organizations.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Boys & Girls Club Dinner

This past Tuesday (11/20/07) Boys and Girls club of Central Florida held its annual Thanksgiving dinner for more then 400 local children. As one of the volunteers IBR was happy to lend its hand in giving back to community. This years event attracted more then 40 volunteers - a testament to a great job that Pamela Sible , Sara Oliver and rest of the staff of BGCCF had done by spreading awareness of their organization in the community. We are happy to note that this years event was even better organized and planed then last years event. All kids were served in record time and thanks to generosity of sponsors which included Universal Studios and Orlando Magic among others kids got to play with Magic's mascot, Woody Woodpecker, Olive, Scuby Do, and few others! I am personally always impressed how well behaved those 400 + children were - where not enough credit can be given to teacher and staff doing marvelous jobs.

Boys and Girls club of Central Florida has clubs throughout Central Florida and is always looking for local businesses to get involved with children volunteering, mentoring, sponsoring events and spreading awareness. For more information please visit their website www.bgccf.org.

Check out few pictures from this event below:

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Orlando Internet Marketing Seminar presented by IBU

Internet Marketing

(Michael Teitelbaum – President of TruePresence)

Clients include AMF bowling, car parts manufacturer, also started an internet marketing contract with US Airways right after 9-11.

QUOTES:

“It is not all about visitor on your site but rather what they do afterwards. “

“0.33% is industry average for conversion rates for banner ads.”

FIND.GET.KEEP.

Find people looking for your products or services.

Get the people to become customers.

Keep them as a customer – via recurring email messages.

Web users >> site visitors >> loyal customers

FIND CUSTOMERS

How to find customers:

Search engine marketplace: Google 49.2% Yahoo: 23.8% MSN: 9.6%

Types of search results:

Paid

Natural

unlimited keywords

limited keywords

immediate results that are easy to track

results take 3-6 months

position determined by your bid price and click through rate

position determined by the algorithms

geo targeting eliminates need for geographic descriptors

geographic descriptor often required

Getting started with paid search:

Þ determine business objective

Þ identify search terms

Þ write effective copy

Þ identify or build landing pages

Determine your business objective

Acquire online customers

Generate Leads (Acquire offline customer)

Define ultimate business goals:

Coast per Acquisition

Cost of lead

Cost per customer lifetime (how much they spend over period)

Identify Key Search terms:

Products and services

Brand names

Competitors

All possible variations

Write effective copy

Include search term in the title

Give people compelling reason to click (discounts and special offers, FREE shipping…)

Landing pages

Landing page is a specific page where visitor lands after clicking on search engine

Give them what they want on landing page – specifics related to search term

Keep the copy simple and direct

Forms should be simple

External links should open in new window – once they leave landing page they can always came back to that window

Measure results:

Conversion counts

Impressions

Clicks

Click per click

Conversions

Cost per conversion

Revenue generated

Return on investment

Actively manage campaign

Analyze each search term

Adjust CPC based on performance

Edit copy

Key to search marketing success

Search term expertise in your clients industries

Orlando SEO – WHAT MAKES IT WORK

Content is the king – strategic copywriting using specific keywords

Pay attention to details

Site structure

Meta tags

Internal links

Link popularity

Local search listing

50% of local searches are conducted with intent to purchase

55% of the time they are searching for brands, specific product models

Control the accuracy of the “Who” information

Business name

Address

Telephone

Add relevant “What” information

Products

Services

Brands

Hours of operation

Email

Website

Online display advertising (Banners)

Online media

Understand target audience

Research and negotiate with relevant websites

Effective Banner

Consistent brand message

Strong offer

Clear call-to-action

Landing Page

Relevant to web advertising

Desired prominently displayed

Maximize # of clicks to conversion

Targeting Options:

Contextual

Behavioral

User/demographic interests

Pricing options

Cost per thousand

Cost per click

Cost per acquisition

Ad Types

Text Ads

Static image

Animated gif images

Flash

Rich media

Video

Measuring and Optimizing Performance

Analyze performance for each add and placement

Adjust campaign based on performance

GETTING CUSTOMERS

What creates effective site

Presents a positive and professional images

Useful and informative

Allows user to interact and transact

Ingredients and effective site

Focus

Identify your audience BEFORE deciding what site would be like

Purpose

How can you solve your target audience needs

Make it easy to get to specific areas

Make it easy for them to interact

Design

Transform site into a powerful customer experience

Copy

Romance the reader with powerful message

Connect with them emotionally and rationally

Compel them to take the action

Coding

Display properly in all different browsers

Loads quickly

Search engine friendly

Functionality

CMS – allows site owner to update content on their own

eCommerce – make it easy for visitors to make a purchase

Forms – get visitor data

What makes for a good Content Management System - CMS?

Easy to use for everyday user

Web based

Design freedom

Search engine friendly

TrueBlue CMS – is their own (TruePresence) CMS

Orlando Web development – establish a process

Have good hosting

Site analytics

KEEP CUSTOMERS

Email returns %57.25 for every dollar spent

Emails drove $7.7 billion in consumer sales and $8.8 billion in B2B in 2005

Email advantage

Personalized

Targeted

Measurable

Inexpensive

What is in it for subscriber?

New product notification

New service notifications

Company news and events

Relevant industry news

Promotional offers

Money saving coupons

Email best practices

Obtain permission

Make it easy to unsubscribe

Set content and frequency expectations

Avoids words and phrases associated with spam



RESOURCES:

Orlando Web site design - IBR LLC

Insight Business Update

TruePresence

Thursday, November 8, 2007

SBDC Orlando: e-Business for Small Business

Jeff Bosworth – moderator

Moved to Florida in 1994 and started working with ISP IAG (later known as MPInet). Also worked as sales agent for Clear Channel. Started his own company Sales Growth Group SGG.

One word that Jeff wants to know only one word out of today’s session it is RELEVANCE.

ECommerce is not simply shopping cart online – it takes more then that.

What would your priorities be?

  1. OBJECTIVE – know precisely what it is before hand -WRITE IT DOWN

Jeff will try to provides us with tools, training, and advice

Tools:

Þ Who is lookup (who owns it, who is administrative contact, is auto renew enabled)

Þ Freedom Voice will give you 800 # for about $10/month which you can forward to any other #

Training:

Þ Unique Selling Proposition – USP

Þ Website should be part of the marketing mix

Þ Conversion

Þ Clearly define your demographic

Þ Perception – it is realty

Þ Be comprehensive is your sales presentation

Þ CAPTURE & HOLD ATTENTION

Selling:

Þ Prospecting (getting people to your site) know where your potential customers are

Þ Qualification

Þ Presentation (F strategy – look at the top, left side, middle) [it takes 5-8 presentations to get someone to buy]

Þ Close - CALL TO ACTION

Þ Service – stay in touch

QUOTES:

“If company tells me we would like to involve our IT guy in web development money – I run away from it.”

“Your website needs great calls to action, graphics, color scheme, navigation.”

HOSTING:

Þ Get the hosting that has the best statistics package

Þ Who is lookup – fasterwhois.com make sure you own your domain

Þ FTP – file transfer protocol is how you can get to all your web files

Þ ICANN – list of domain registrars (www.ican.org/registrars/accredited-list.html)

Þ Shared vs. co-location & dedicated – it is all about traffic that your web site is getting: if your site gets thousands of daily unique visitors that you can consider dedicated server or co-location

Þ Test your own site regularly, see if the forms are working properly

Þ Domain name – get something shot and relevant to your business with .COM ending

Þ Email – DO NOT USE EMAILS FROM YAHOO, MSN, AOL AS BUSINESS EMAIL

WEBSITE ESSENTIALS:

Þ Site architecture – draw your site on a piece of paper the way you would like it (check out few of your competitors and note what you like to emulate). Note down color scheme – specify colors.

Þ Navigation scheme – be creative and descriptive with menu options .:. CTA (calls to action), KISS (keep it simple stupid), WIIFT (what is in for them)

Þ HTML = static page (you need to know HTML language to change/update it) – it does not change often

Þ Dynamic content – content changed dynamically via backend without the need for any HTML knowledge

Þ Develop a site for all browsers

Þ Comprehensive and RELEVANT content – spell check it…

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A GREAT WEBSITE CHECKLIST:

Þ Is your objective met right on the first page with a CALL TO ACTION

GETTING TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE:

Þ Traditional advertising – TV, radio, billboard

Þ Non traditional – SEO, email blasts, link exchange, CPC, PPC

SHOPPING CART:

Þ Ask for examples from your web developer and see if you like what they’ve done before

Þ Make it easy to buy – show SSL certificate company

Þ Merchant gateway – Authorize.NET…. ask for previous integration examples, test with your credit card

Þ MOST IMPORTANT: USER EXPERIENCE (WHOULD YOU SHOP AT YOUR OWN SITE?)

WEBSITE DEVELOPERS AND PROGRAMERS:

Þ Ask for references and call those

Þ Make sure to have access to your website (FTP, control panel)

Þ Feel comfortable with your development firm

WHAT PRODUCTS & SERVICES ARE LOOKING FOR:

Þ Path of least and absolute resistance (POLAAR)

Þ Build customer database (it is cheaper to sell to existing customers then try to acquire new ones)

Þ It takes between 5-8 attempts to get someone to buy



RESOURCES:

Orlando Web Design & Development - IBR LLC

SBDC Orlando