There’s a common saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. While this may be true for canines, it’s never too late for any human to adopt new practices or discover fresh innovations - no matter what age. Since companies are only clusters of humans (well, usually) it stands to reason they can adapt too. Then why, I hear you ask, are so many companies still caught up with traditional notions about advertising, marketing and PR? At Soul Arch Media and Marketing we love to show our clients great new ways to reach their niche target markets. But for small businesses of any description, here are just three things you should be integrating into your 2008 campaigns:

1. Get Visual with Video Content.

Create an instant connection with buyers via video served directly to their computer screens via your corporate website, in your company newsletter, via social media news releases, or load it and spread it across the web for free via websites with video sharing capabilities like YouTube, MySpace, FaceBook, MetaCafe, the list is endless. Can you think of a more cost-effective way to reach thousands of potential clients and make a great first impression? Didn’t think so!

2. Mine Your Databases.

Are you sending your clients prompt answers to enquiries? Or notifications about sales and specials? Sure you are. But did you know your best bet to retain repeat business is by making people feel like valued customers? So say you’ve done the groundwork and have their details in your database. How about notes to thank customers after purchases, or to extend birthday wishes or holiday greetings? It’s little touches like these that can really show your company’s dedication. Sure, this can be time consuming, but you can automate most of these processes (look into ‘autoresponders’ if you’d like to do much of this via email - and minus print stationary and postage costs!) for very minimal outlay.

3. Finally figure out what Web 2.0 means.

If you’ve really been snoozing, all the recent news references to web 2.0 marketing might really have you confused — especially if you’re not even really sure what web 2.0 means! Well relax, it’s really not that tricky. Web 2.0 is simply a catchphrase coined to describe the shift from information on the world wide web being displayed to viewers via web pages to being created or controlled by audiences thanks to technology breakthroughs allowing immediate reader interaction. The term has evolved and used loosely to refer to or describe modern interfaces like wikis (yep, like Wikipedia) right through to social networking sites (the most famous being MySpace or Facebook) and anywhere the end user gets to contribute. So where does marketing enter the web 2.0 equation? Well, pretty much everywhere. You could build a free profile on these popular social sites, raising your brand visibility and creating traffic by linking between your main website or online store. Or you can advertise on these sites ( be warned- the prices are staggering). There are also specific business networking sites (like LinkedIn). Or, for businesses in the practice of sending out press releases or trying to increase their website or blog’s visibility, take a look at social bookmarking or user-generated/user-voted news sites like Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and Reddit. Some will let you submit your site or release, which can really spike interest if other users find it (ahem, and actually like it…). Other sites (like Technorati) can really raise the profile of your blog by automatically republishing your fresh content to it’s users. This is just a very simplified condensed list, but to start exploring web 2.0 opportunities take a look around these sites to see if they’d fit your business - they’re all incredibly useful, and they’re all free (that’s if you don’t count time as a commodity!)

If nothing else, at least build yourself a page on Squidoo.com ( it’s like the sites listed above in the fact it lets you create a free profile, but differs in that it intends to share knowledge on a subject - even if the subject is your business or field of expertise!)
Visit our brand new Squidoo page to promote our Gold Coast video production company. It’s still fresh off the press and very sorely in need of some extra content, but we’ll be adding new Squidoo pages on topics like How To Create Your Next Web Video Campaign and as well as a Gold Coast Video production page in coming weeks. Oh yeah, and while you’re there feel free to bookmark us on your brand spankin’ new Del.icio.us or StubleUpon account
http://www.squidoo.com/soularchmedia_marketing

Cheers from the crew at Soul Arch Media & Marketing! x

As part of Soul Arch Media & Marketing’s ongoing commitment to our local Gold Coast community (and not-for-profits from any region) we’ll be donating one marketing project per month to a worthy cause. It may be an online video production or a DVD project or a series of PR news releases, it all depends on the organisation’s needs. Since we’re not millionaires with money to burn, for us actions speak louder than cash donations and we’re happy to give our time.  But the best thing about donating resources? Seeing results firsthand.

A few weeks ago we created a short video for the Save Our Spit campaign, a group dedicated to keeping an area of the Gold Coast called The Spit free from further development that would infringe on public access areas. The group had successfully rallied thousands of supporters to stop a Cruiseship Terminal and a Super Boat marina from being built in an area popular for recreational boating, fishing and surfing. But to go the next step towards having the area gazetted by the local Queensland goverment, increasing support was needed.

We created a short video clip by combining vox pop interviews with people from all walks of life who frequent The Spit, some scenic shots, and some surf footage of 8-times world surfing champion Kelly Slater that Dave had already filmed for The Surfers Network (which they kindly donated to the cause). By formatting the production into a low resolution flash video we were able to place it onto the Save Our Spit site, and also share it with online surf media across the world.

Major Australian surf forecasting site CoastalWatch were given exclusive access to the video a weekend before it was released internationally. This link was insanely popular, creating massive amounts of traffic for the Save Our Spit website and raising awareness to their ongoing campaign in the process. Other surf media soon followed suit. With just one online video and a press release targeted towards appropriate niche media outlets, this small, grassroots Gold Coast campaign gathered international attention, more visitors to their site, and more signatures for their petition. Got to love that! Could a similarly simple video or PR campaign help your business?

Read some of the great Save Our Spit video coverage here:

http://www.coastalwatch.com/news/article.aspx?articleId=3483&display=0&cateId=3&title=SOS%20-%20Save%20Our%20Spit

Caz x

Just a note that if you happen to be online this weekend and are twiddling your thumbs, get over to http://www.boostsurfsho.com.au

Soul Arch Media & Marketing’s own Dave Emge is filming surf video for the live webcast of an international aerial surf competition for Boost Mobile & Globe. With ASP world tour surfers like Mick Fanning and Taj Burrow amongst the action, it’s well worth a squiz!

Webasts are rapidly growing in popularity for niche sports (like surfing) that don’t receive great  TV coverage,  thereby enabling specialty events like this to reach thousands of viewers online.  Make sure to get over to the event site to check out a great example of streaming video production in action.

Caz x

Well it’s only part way through April but it has been a busy month here already at Soul Arch Media and Marketing. Although we have been online for several months now, we’ve only just started our online marketing push to really “launch” the site.
It’s all very exciting watching campaigns detonate across the web. There’s been three press releases already, with many more to come. You can view them online here:
http://pressroom.prlog.org/CazSoulArc/
In the meantime we’ll be getting back to publishing our marketing tips and commenting on worldwide online marketing news very shortly — we’ve just been getting caught up in all the hype and glory, ’tis all! We’ll get back to earth (and back to blogging) very shortly, we promise.
Caz x

So you’re a small start-up with low cash flow and you’re not sure how you can raise your online profile without launching a massive online campaign? Not all traffic boosting techniques require superhuman SEO skills or need to break the budget. But if you decide to go the low budget way you do require plenty of time on your hands and patience by the bucket-load. Still keen? Here’s just a few techniques that should get your site stats jumping.

1. Directories by the Dozen
You don’t need to engage in dodgy link swapping schemes with dubious websites to get your website’s URL in front of potential visitors; there are plenty of quality directories out there who will list your business for free in hopes that you will one day become a paying customer.
Do a quick online search pairing your product or profession’s name along with a keyword like directory (IE: real estate agent directory). Also try a similar search including area and/or country (IE: gold coast video production directory Australia). To find even more targeted results, try the whole exercise again incorporating words like free (IE: gold coast marketing services free directory). Sifting through the results you should find at least several national and local directories that will list your business for free, no strings attached. Usually these directories also offer premium paid listings with all the bells and whistles, but just stick with the basic free listing service (at least until you work out which ones generate the most interest in your site or prove to be the best potential fit for your product or brand).

2. Targeted Text
Is the text on your website optimized for search engines to organically help boost your rankings? Make sure that you have layered lots of keywords specific to your product or company - and remember these won’t always be the words you’d expect. To try work out the popular search terms you should layer through your text and tags, brainstorm a few keywords then enter them into an online Keyword Tool generator like the free one at Google:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Type in your keyword and it will show you a list of ideas sorted by how many searches are conducted using each set of related words. Once you’ve narrowed down a suitable list, focus on trying to include at least three of the terms on each page of your website - don’t forget to include them in title tags, alt tags and file names too. If you’re having trouble making it all gel into readable text, don’t be afraid to seek out the services of a copywriter experienced in this area; it’s often a lot cheaper than you think!

3. Integrate Your Offline Efforts
Depending on your product or profession’s target demographic, it may be wise to invest some time building an offline campaign to compliment your online one. This can take many forms, but some cost-effective ideas that will work for a broad range of businesses are competitions that direct contestants to your site for more details, gathering photos of customers and building an online gallery on your site that they must log on to view, or creating a customer loyalty scheme that offers monthly prizes with winners names available only online. Anything that offers an incentive big enough for people to go to the hassle of typing out your web address and finding your site will do - and don’t think you have to go all out and offer up some billion dollar luxury holiday. Research consistently shows people actually respond better to smaller prizes as they psychologically think they have a way better chance of winning. And don’t forget to plug your website in all your offline materials; this includes business cards, brochures, anywhere your name is mentioned! (Speaking of which, did I remember to plug our site www.soularchmedia.com yet??)

These three ideas should get you started, but there’s more where that came from. Stay tuned for the next installment of our shoe-string budget tips for helping your business grow online!

Caz x
(Yep, you guessed it, coming at you live from www.soularchmedia.com!)