What a deal:

Get this watch now!

Marketing strategy is a critical component of political campaigns. Serving as the central process through which political campaign teams connect with the public, distribute information and political advertising, marketing strategy attempts to make impressions upon the opinions of the voting population. The tried-and-true methods of the past have not been abandoned, but these traditional approaches are being supplanted by the marketing opportunities presented by the Internet and the rise of social networks.

Online marketing enables political campaigns to broaden the potential audience reached through their marketing efforts. Through social media outlets, marketing materials can reach a more politically active audience, and one more likely to step into a voting booth on Election Day. Even better for campaigns operating on tight budgets is that, in many cases, marketing materials published and distributed online can be read and shared through organic distribution that drains little to nothing from campaign coffers.

With the presidential campaign underway, inbound marketing and other strategies are already underway. In Chicago, President Barack Obama is drumming up support and momentum through a variety of marketing efforts geared toward increasing his appeal, generating good vibes and using his hometown as a launching pad for his reelection bid. But any politician can use inbound marketing and other marketing tactics to build support in Chicago and other cities without exhausting the campaign’s funds.

Harnessing the Internet to build support

Traditional campaign strategy aims to establish connections with voters at an individual level. Internet-based marketing efforts aim to do the same, and the available tools make this a more practical and efficient process. With email lists, mobile text messaging, Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks, political campaigns can grow a following by encouraging prospective voters to establish a connection and keep up-to-date on news and events.

An often-referenced maxim in political campaigning is that familiarity breeds trust. Greater exposure and visibility of a campaign makes it more likely that voters will develop a sense of trust in that candidate, increasing the odds that they will vote for that person in an election. Social networks allow residual exposure when a voter decides to subscribe to a candidate’s publications and news, including marketing materials, and to share them with their online friends. This also allows political campaigns to target specific demographics. By publishing inbound marketing materials relevant to a specific demographic, they maximize the potential for those materials to spread virally and help develop trust with those voters.

Following Obama’s blueprint

When Barack Obama was in the midst of his presidential campaign in 2008, several aspects of his marketing strategy differed from the approaches of other major candidates. More than anyone else, Obama developed a social media presence and used that presence to distribute information to the public in the form of inbound marketing and other information. He catered to citizen journalists to rally support from those grassroots institutions. He kept his message simple and hooked voters by selling them on his ideas, not on himself as a person or by using negative campaigning to hurt his opponents.

In doing so, Obama reshaped political campaign strategy. Today’s campaigning caters more to voters in the Information Age. The typical voter is better informed, well-connected through social media and interested in the content of a candidate’s platform more than the characteristics of a specific candidate. Following Obama’s successful run, expect to see more campaigns adopting his approach to build connections with voters and supply them with what interests them most.

Today’s Political Landscape

In this election year, candidates are aware that in order to be successful, they need to be adaptable. Additionally, marketing teams are finding new ways to stretch their dollars and get the best return on their investments. The use of social media to drive campaigns will be visible from the presidential campaign all the way down to the local level, and for the same reason: familiarity breeds trust. But inbound marketing will maintain its value as a means of distributing ideas and information and continue to make a lasting impression on the voting public.

Jessica is interested in marketing and technology. She enjoys learning about business related applications for social media.

It is an entirely new world when it comes to hotel marketing. New technological advances have forced hotels to change how they track guests. Nowadays, social networking to blogs and online travel reviews to setting up a website are being implemented.

In order to stay competitive, hotels must ensure they are continually visible to travelers who now go online, as opposed to using a travel agent, to make their travel plans. All in all, an MS dynamics CRM system is used to do just that. The system is used to contact, market and keep track of current, past, future and potential hotel guests.

• Call Centers. The use of a call center is one way a hotel can ensure that guests are being taken care of in an effective and timely manner. The call center is used to make and receive calls regarding the hotel and offer travel plan information. It can also be used to track customer calls and gather feedback through customer surveys. Sometimes centers are used to make phone calls to offer guests a deal on their next stay.
• Social Media. Social media has exploded in recent years and it is only continuing to increase in popularity. MS dynamics CRM can be used to input a variety of information about guests, including Twitter accounts, Facebook IDs and email addresses. Through the latest social media sites, hotels are then able to send out messages, special promotions and announcements to guests via the computer or smart phone. Hotels have also been utilizing Foursquare as a method of engaging mobile users.
• Websites. Though it sounds obvious, hotels are now setting up their own websites, featuring specials, showing photos of rooms and amenities and other travel related information. All hotels strive to get their site top placement on Google, Yahoo!, Bing or other similar search engines. This is primarily because approximately 97 percent of travelers will base their vacation plans by only looking at the top 10 results. Hotels are also making the websites mobile friendly for the increasing amount of smart phone users.
• Email. MS dynamics offers what is known as “intelligent emailing,” which is when the database is able to send out emails for confirmations, thank you, pre-arrival and surveys. Hotel websites make is possible for guests to set up for intelligent emailing services at one location.
• Other Online Sites. There are a large variety of other online resources that hotels utilize as part of the company’s marketing strategy. Some hotels sign up with travel and discount sites, such as Groupon Getaway with Expedia, Travelocity, Booking Buddy and so on. Some other resources are online reviews and blogs.

In order to keep up with the advancement of how travelers make travel plans, hotels have to alter the marketing strategy. Everything from online resources to utilizing MS dynamics CRM can help keep the hotel competitive and on top of current marketing tactics.

This is a guest post by Jessica Stark

I heard about Cloudcache from a friend who recommended it. Find out what it did for me:

Cloudcache is a content delivery network (CDN), also known as a cloud cache. These services work by hosting your big files on super-fast servers, which gives you a variety of benefits. I chose Cloudcache over other services for many reasons, and so far I’m happy I chose them. Here’s why:

Cloudcache’s lower tiers don’t rip you off

Almost all CDN’s work on a tiered model, whereby you get a certain amount of bandwidth and hosting space per month depending on how much you pay. There’s usually a starter version, a basic version, a premium version, and an enterprise version, or some variations thereof. Cloudcache is no different in this way. It provides standard differences in bandwidth and storage space like its competitors.

So, how are Cloudcache’s tiers different from its competitors?

For me, Cloudcache’s big appeal is that they don’t take anything away from the lower tiers. There are no daily caps that are nonexistent on higher tiers, and no throttling (which, by the way, defeats the purpose of a CDN) to force you to upgrade to a higher tier that you otherwise would not need. I had to switch to a lower tier from a higher tier a few months ago, and I did not see my speeds being throttled at all. The only differences are the amount of storage space a the amount of bandwidth I’m allotted, plus the higher tiers let you use a custom SSL that goes through your domain instead of Cloudcache’s domain.

Faster load speed means more traffic…

Google’s search rankings favor pages that load quickly. This means that if you have video or other slow-loading content that is hosted on your own site, then you will be punished in search rankings. However, if you have the content loaded on a supercharged CDN, Google will not count it toward your page loading times and will thus rank your site higher on search engine results. When I started using Cloudcache, I had around 3000 visitors per day but I now have around 4500 per day, and I did not substantially increase my marketing efforts or off-site SEO since I started using it.

…and higher conversions

For me, what distinguishes Cloudcache from other CDN’s that I tried is that Cloudcache not only makes the page load faster for Google (by remotely hosting large files for me), but also for human viewers. It does this by having distributed servers located throughout the world. So, if I have a customer in Australia, Cloudcache will give the customer my video from a super-fast Australian server.

Cloudcache is safe

Internet security is very important if you have a site that does financial transactions, like I do. Every day, I sell a few products and people have to give me their credit card information. It needs to be sent encrypted over the Internet or else it will get stolen. Cloudcache uses SSL encryption to make sure that my customers’ data is safe. I can also use this encryption to send files that I don’t want intercepted, for example, if I am selling people online videos then I do not want pirates to get my videos.

This guest post was written by Tommy Keane.

If you’re like me, you’ve tried several social media monitoring and management services trying to get a hold on the firehose of information out there. Whether you are a small business owner, online marketer, a customer service agent or a blogger, it can be a challenge to discover, analyze and respond to everyone on the web you need to be talking to. And chances are, you’ve been disappointed by one service or another in the past.

I’m excited to announce the launch of Alerti, a Paris-based social media monitoring and management service that already has thousands of users on their French-language version. Alerti’s founders took on the challenge of creating a single, customizable interface to manage and share the flood of information out there on the web, and I think they have succeeded. And if you’re like me and need to keep costs low, they have you covered with a Premium package for just $35/ month.
 

 
FREE: I am working with Alerti and can offer a limited number of 3-month trials to Receptional.com readers who register at Alerti and enter “receptional” as the Bonus Code.

Maybe you already have a social media monitoring and management service, but you’re one of the 66% of users who told OneForty and KissMetrics in their recent survey that described their experience with their current monitoring service as “okay” or “frustrated.” Alerti offers a streamlined content interface, integrated work-flow management, and direct social media profile administration at an economical cost.

Key Feature #1: Custom Search – Alerti offers a customizable search based around a search engine that continuously scanning online content. Alerti empowers you to follow what is being said about you, your brand, or your competitors on the Internet, to measure the engagement of your communities, and to interact with them.

Key Feature #2: Dynamic Metrics – Alerti provides automated metrics analysis that you can also control to suit your needs. All graphs are customizable and the sentiment analysis of post results can be tweaked based on your own reading.

Key Feature #3: Work Flow Integration – If you are working as part of a team to analyze and manage your search results, Alerti makes that easy. You can tag individual posts for reference, share alerts out to colleagues and respond to relevant posts directly from your Alerti account.

Key Feature #4: Single Interface – Alerti brings all of these functionalities into a single interface, meaning that you can track keywords, measure engagement, manage work-flow, and respond through your Facebook and Twitter accounts from a single screen.

To top it off, they have an iPhone app so you keep track of your alerts on the go.

Whether you are looking for social media monitoring and management for marketing and sales, customer service, press relations, lead generation, or just a way to get more involved in the conversation, Alerti works.

See for yourself in other short demos about Alerti’s Custom Search, Single Interface, and Work-Flow Management features.

As I said, I’m using this service and I am excited to offer 10 FREE 3 month trials to bloggers or business owners who register at Alerti and use the “MN” bonus code.
–
Murray Newlands is the founder of Influence People and author of a recent book on Social Media Monitoring.

Personal branding focuses on finding your essence and presenting that in a way that stands out from the crowd. In different fields and for different people, standing out can mean different things. For someone in engineering, it could mean leading or working on a cutting-edge project. For someone in public relations, it could mean working on a campaign for a client that exceeded expectations. For an author, it could mean getting a great speaking opportunity.

When you think about what makes you stand out now and how you want to stand out in the future, don’t judge your accomplishments based on what others in your field are doing or have done. It’s not about whether you stand out more or less than the other person—it’s about how YOU stand out.

Those experiences will help you zero in on what comes easily to you, what you are comfortable doing, and whether you want to pursue the same or different kinds of opportunities to build your brand. It’s important to identify the instances and ways that you have stood out, but it’s even more important to identify the skills you were using. Keep that in mind when you make your lists.

TO DO:

Think about and write down the following:

• What projects, tasks or skills do your co-workers turn to you for help with?
• What parts of your daily work do you find easiest?
• What parts of your daily work do you find most appealing?
• What have you been recognized by your co-workers for doing recently?
• What recent professional accomplishment(s) are you most proud of?
• In what way do you most wish you could professionally stand out?

What is Personal Branding?
by Jim Kukral & Murray Newlands

Murray Newlands is an online marketing expert who founded Influence People, a San Francisco-based online marketing and blogger outreach consulting firm. Jim Kukral and Murray Newlands recently wrote What is Personal Branding? How to Create a Memorable & Powerful Brand that Sells YOU! to help people learn how to market themselves.

Find out how to increase eCommerce revenue and make more money online!

How to Increase eCommerce Revenue

A lot of online marketing people, whether they’re affiliate marketers or AdSense bloggers, know how to tread water but they couldn’t swim one mile in a triathalon. They might have read some website about how to make money online and got pretty good at it, or it’s something they do in their spare time to have a little extra money in their pocket.

I’ve worked in online marketing for years so I’ve learned a few ways that you can use to get more traffic to your site and convert more of that traffic to leads and sales, thereby increasing your eCommerce revenue.

1) Make sure people can find you on Google

These days, people usually find websites through search engine queries instead of via hyperlinks. Because of this, you need to make sure that people can find you on Google and other search engines if you want your site to get any traffic. The best way to do this is to hire an expert company to build backlinks to your webpage using anchor text for terms that people who would buy your product or click your AdSense ads would search for. This sounds fairly straightforward since it’s such a basic part of online marketing, but there’s more to it than just looking for “SEO companies” on Google and hiring one to build links to your site.

Beware of spammers

A lot of people hiring an SEO company for the first time make the mistake of hiring an outsourced company that gets lots of low-quality links from spammy sites. Usually, these companies employ people in third world countries who can barely speak English to write articles for them, and therefore the writers can’t get articles on any websites except websites owned by other writers who barely speak English.

This works fine for a few months but eventually the spammy links get the website they’re linking to delisted from Google’s search index. The only way to fix it is to get the company to remove the links, which could take weeks.

2) Make sure people see your site

Once people have found your site, they need to only need to stay on it long enough to register as a lead or complete a transaction. If you have an AdSense advertising blog, this means they need to stay long enough to click on a banner ad, but if you’re selling something or registering leads then they need to be there long enough to hooked. They’ve already clicked a search engine result for your page, so shouldn’t they already be interested in what you have to offer?

Utilize site acceleration

Once people click on your site, you need to make sure that the site loads fast enough so that they don’t get frustrated and lead. In the past year or so this has become an even bigger problem for website owners with the advent of tablets where you only have to “swipe back” to go back to the search results page. The solution is to find a good site acceleration service. Accelerated websites are hosted by super-fast servers so that they load faster, which means less people will leave your site waiting for it to load. On top of using top-notch servers, good site acceleration services like MaxCDN host a site’s content on multiple servers across the English-speaking world, which means that somebody in New York won’t have to wait for a page to load from a server in San Francisco or Australia.

About the author: David Henzel is the Vice President of Marketing at content delivery network and site acceleration services provider NetDNA.

Since SEO is a cost-effective way to bring traffic and build popularity, today you will hardly find any website that does not do SEO to rank high on Google. Whether it is a big-time e-commerce site, a product-based portal or a family-owned business website, SEO is something all can access and enjoy.

But the story does not end there. SEO is a large field of study and it comprises of handful practices. What would fit your bill and what not always remains a hidden story for most of the advertisers. SEO outsourcing itself requires a lot of planning and calculations.

Do you know the series of activities SEO services UK perform for a client? Do you know all the major ranking factors responsible higher customer response? Are you aware of top SEO services that can give you maximum boost up?

If you have contacted a reliable SEO company look at their important services you should get for your website. You can also leave the matter to experts as they will understand your needs well.

The top 3 services you must claim from SEO professionals:

Keyword research and competition mapping

Search engine optimisation starts with sorting out right set of keywords. Keyword selection can be very tricky and confusing, because you have to analyse pool of data from variety of source. Then assumptions, speculation, expectation – all come in play. Make sure the chosen keywords are good enough to drive more and more traffics.

Link development program

Building relevant backlinks for your site is important to rank well in Google. Make sure the inbound links are of high quality, means they should be from respectable and high authority sites. Link values are equivalent to vote for online popularity.

Video marketing

With YouTube, Meta cafe and other popular video sharing websites it is possible to retain online viewers. Audiences prefer watching videos than reading texts. Through videos you can communicate your marketing message most successfully and earn credibility.

So from next time while you discuss the scope of your SEO project with SEO service UK company keep these 3 services in mind.

This is a guest post by Sujoy1976.

Improvement is a term that is relative and differs from one person to another. As such it is quite impossible to provide a benchmark for what is the ideal standard of self improvement. In fact, becoming better from whatever you were is considered improvement. When it comes to financial self improvement, proper financial education is necessary for this. You need to implement your education into proper financial practices in order to improve yourself financially. Here are a few financial practices that you can implement in order to make yourself and your financial habits improve.

Plan a budget and follow

There are two steps in this process. What most people do is just plan a budget, perhaps follow it for some days and then it remains on the corner of the table gathering dust. Thus the only requirement is not planning a budget, what is required along with that is following is diligently. In this way you would be able to keep a control over the amount of money that you are spending each week and also know the things behind which you are spending the money.

Learn to know what you need

It is very important that you learn to differentiate your necessities and your luxuries. While planning a budget you should give first priority to necessities. And then if you think you will be able to afford some luxury then go for it. But remember to make this indulgence occasional.

Create a savings account

This is a necessary and outstanding financial habit. You should make it a point to keep aside some amount of money every month from your income in a savings fund. This can come of a lot of use. You can use this money to pay off your debts. You can also use this money if you need lump sum cash for any emergency financial purpose instead of taking a loan.

Use few credit cards

One of the greatest reasons for falling into debt is excessive usage of credit cards. If you can stop this, then you would be a step ahead in preventing yourself from falling into debt. You should use cash as much as possible. Since you cannot carry too much cash at a time, you won’t end up spending much. Also when you use less number of credit cards you can keep a tab on how much you are spending.

Apart from the above four, you should also try to pay back your credit card bill within its due date. Once the date crosses, you start incurring interest on your borrowed amount. Thus now you have to pay more than the amount you borrowed to be debt free.

A lot of mobile app developers have good business-to-consumer marketing programs and the apps themselves are pretty good, but they struggle to make money with their apps. Why?

There’s a great article on The Basics of Hacking about how to monetize mobile apps, in particular Android apps but most of the techniques still apply to iOS, Windows Mobile, and yes, even webOS.

One of the most effective yet underutilized ways in the article is placing advertisements within your app. This can be done without a third party but unless you find someone willing to pay you a ton of money for buying some pixels for a month then the best way to do it is to go through a third party company, like Moolah Media.

Moolah Media works by linking publishers with advertisers, and tailoring ads so that they’re relevant to the app and relevant to the individual users using them. That means they can work both for apps whose users are easy to target and for apps whose users are hard to target.

Disclaimer: My company Influence People does consulting work for Moolah Media.