Make sure to save money while keeping yourself warm this winter:

• Install heat reflectors behind radiators
• Place reflective window films on the inside of window panes and glass doors
• Cover your air conditioner 
• Put draft blockers behind light switches and electrical outlets
• Caulk the gaps around your windows
• Programmable thermostats control temperature when you aren't home

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YouTube Helps Builds Your Online Presence

YouTube is not just used to spread funny or bizarre videos throughout the web. Many businesses are utilizing this social media site as a powerful marketing tool by creating their own YouTube channels to promote their brand.  A YouTube channel can greatly advance your online presence, but just like any other online content, it needs to be properly created and maintained.

Why is YouTube so popular? 

Typically, people are much more inclined to view a short video than read through a long article.  It adds more enjoyment and entertainment to the message you are trying to send.  YouTube has also become one of the largest search engines online and a very successful social media outlet.  People can easily share and send videos, creating the same viral results as Facebook or Twitter.

Follow these steps to quickly and easily set up your YouTube channel:

1. Create a YouTube account to set up a channel.  You might already have a personal account, but if you want to use a YouTube channel to promote a business or product, it’s best that you create a new account used for business.  The username you establish on YouTube becomes part of your channel URL. Select something that relates to your business name that is memorable. For example, BioPlasticsCompany has a username of bioplasticscompany and their YouTube URL is www.youtube.com/bioplasticscompany.

2. Sign in to YouTube using your new account and choose the channel link from the drop down menu.  This takes you to the page where you can manage all the different aspects of your channel.

3. Design your YouTube channel with SEO techniques in mind. Use keywords in video titles, descriptions, and tags.

Be sure to use your channel tags in your company description.

4.  Before you upload any videos, brand your channel by creating a look and feel that aligns with the goals you are trying to accomplish.  Use the Themes and Colors tab at the top of the channel page to change the design.  Upload a background image and choose your own color scheme.  Click on “Show Advanced Options” to see more choices.  

5.  Once you’ve finished the design of your channel, you can begin uploading videos.  Be sure to treat these videos as you would any content on a regular website.  Your videos should be the best quality that you’re able to produce.  You aren’t at a disadvantage if you don’t have a professional production team.  With today’s technology, anyone can create a video – just be sure to have a plan for your filming strategy.

6.  When you begin designing your videos, have a consistent format.  Think of your videos as chapters in a book – they should fit together and be relatable.  This can be achieved by structuring your videos in a similar way and adding your logo to each video. Remember, you want to use your YouTube channel to develop your brand.   

7.  When a visitor opens your YouTube channel, one of your videos will be featured prominently on the screen, while the other videos are listed as thumbnails on the right.  Choose which video to feature and whether this video will autoplay. 

8.  Once your YouTube channel is up and running, promote it through other outlets, such as your website, newsletters, or social media pages.  Post links to your channel and embed videos on sites like Facebook.   

9.  You’re work isn’t done after you’ve created a well-developed YouTube channel with a good following.  The channel requires maintenance just like any other site.  Keep things current, upload new videos as needed, and engage your followers!  Just like Facebook or Twitter, the best way to keep people interested is to get them talking.   

The best way to achieve success using a YouTube channel is to treat it like any other website or social media outlet.  Spend time to develop a good marketing strategy that addresses all of your company’s needs.  If you can create an effective YouTube channel, that integrates with your other marketing materials, then you can reach your target audience and enhance your online presence.

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High gas prices are as good a reason as any to increase your car's fuel efficiency, but these tips also reduce pollution:

• Change your air filter regularly
• Speeding eats up extra gas so stay safe and keep to the speed limit
• Turn your car off instead of idling and put it in neutral for short waits
• Use cruise control whenever possible to maintain a consistent speed
• Inflate your tires to the correct air pressure

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5 "Must-Use" Features of Google Analytics

It seems that everyone these days uses Google Analytics, but we find that many organizations benefit from a better understanding of the relevance of the report data. Looking at website visitors and pageviews is a place to start, however, there is so much more than just how many people came to your site.

Following are 5 must-use features of Google Analytics:

1. Visitors 

The Visitors tab shows how many people visited your site, the type of visitors, and information on how they interacted with the site.  However, the amount of visits your page receives shouldn’t be the only number you use to gauge your website’s success.  Other metrics, such as Average Pageviews and Bounce Rate, can show you how effective your site was at sustaining these visits. 

Average Pageviews indicates how extensively people are interacting with your site.  If this number is low, it could mean people aren’t finding the content they are seeking.

Bounce Rate is the percentage of visits in which someone left the site from the landing page.  A high Bounce Rate means that people are quickly leaving your site after opening the landing page.  

If these numbers aren’t where you would like them to be, your website isn’t delivering what it could.  Develop and tailor your landing page so that it immediately appeals to visitors and gives them a clear indication of what is offered and a reason to look at other areas of the site.  

Once you can track this data, trends and patterns are easily identifiable and you can adjust your site as necessary.  

2. Traffic Sources 

The Traffic Sources tab provides detailed data on how people are arriving at your site.  Use this information to find out how these visitors differ from each other depending on what online medium they use to get to your site. 

All Traffic Sources combines and ranks all the referral mediums in comparison to one another.  This allows you to see how organic search engine traffic compares to your paid advertisements.  For example, a beauty salon in Cleveland might advertise on Cleveland.com.  By clicking on Cleveland.com in the All Traffic Sources list, the salon can see what percent of their traffic is coming from this medium.  What if this percentage is low, but has a high Average Time on Site?  This could mean that Cleveland.com is attracting the right type of visitors, but not in large enough quantities.  The salon could try improving their advertisement for Cleveland.com and continue monitoring it to see if they can generate the right type of visitors in larger amounts.  

Keywords lists the most common keywords and phrases that people are typing into the search engines to ultimately arrive at your site.  These can be segmented by paid, non-paid, or both groups of keywords.  If you are actively optimizing your site for a set of keywords, the keyword report tells you what is working. The list of keywords displayed here are the phrases that people typed into search to find your site today. This helps identify which keywords you are missing.

3.  Content 

The Content tab contains reports on each individual page in your site.  These reports show how visitors interacted with each page including their time on the page, entrance and exit path information, and navigation summaries.  

Top Content offers a look at which pages on your site are most viewed.  You can see the specific page view information and use the Navigation Summary to see how people arrived at each page and where they went after they exited each page.  Keep in mind that if you have a checkout page for when customers have completed a transaction, it may have a higher exit rate than the average.  

In-Page Analytics opens your site within the Google Analytics browser and allows you to easily identify where users are clicking on each page and whether or not these clicks resulted in conversions.  It offers a great visual on site usage as opposed to an overwhelming list of numbers and statistics.

The tools under the Content tab help you focus on the work that needs to be done on individual pages as opposed to the site as a whole.  Look for patterns and trends in the pageview numbers to see if any pages stand out as being viewed far less than others.  It’s possible that these pages are confusing to visitors and are causing them to leave.  

4.  Goals and E-Commerce

At the end of the day, your organization created its site for a reason – to produce results.  Good SEO and good design can end up being irrelevant if your site isn’t generating these desired results.  The Goals and E-Commerce sections of Google Analytics are used to find how well your site fulfills the desired business objectives.  

Funnel Visualization gives you an idea of how successful your site is at directing visitors to your goal.  You can set these goals up from the Overview page and they can be e-commerce related or be something such as getting people to sign up for your newsletter.  If you have four steps in your goal process, the Funnel Visualization allows you to easily identify if any of the steps are over-complicated and causing people to leave before the goal is completed.  

Product Performance not only displays your total revenue for the specified time period, but also splits this revenue up according to product.  If you find that some of your highly advertised products aren’t generating much revenue, check to make sure all of the links are working and that these products are easily found when navigating through your site.  

5. Advanced Segmentation

Advanced Segments filter your data according to the path that visitors used to arrive at your site.  This helps you target your advertising to the areas with the highest chance of success.  They can be created from the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your screen.  You can use the default segments provided by Google Analytics or create your own.  This is especially helpful if you are relying on any e-marketing techniques aside from organic search engine listings.  

When you are paying for advertisements to drive traffic to your site, it’s vital that you know whether the cost is worth the result.  The customized segments uncover the specific metrics on where your leads are being generated.  Discover where your site referrals are coming from and which advertisements are successful in driving these referrals.  Begin by grouping the segment depending on what kind of visits you wish to include.  Then add dimensions and metrics to further qualify your visitors’ activities.  

Remember, Google Analytics is more than just numbers. It can help you create the best marketing mix and action steps for your site provided that you monitor the data with an eye toward your site’s optimum performance.

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As kids return to school, there are simple ways to encourage them to help the environment. Remind them to:

·         Turn off the lights before they leave.

·         Throw away trash on the playground.

·         Use both sides of their notebook paper.

·         Save unused school supplies.

·         Put completed and unwanted school papers in your home recycle bin

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5 LinkedIn Things to Do Today to Improve Your Presence

We spend a lot of time talking about LinkedIn to our clients and seminar attendees. One comment we often hear is that people are busy and don’t want to take the time to update their LinkedIn profile. 

A comprehensive LinkedIn profile is a great way to build your web presence, generate leads, job hunt and more. Start by asking yourself why you have a LinkedIn presence. What is your goal? Are you trying to gain new business? Improve your company’s search engine rankings? Connect with prospects? Get a job?  Then design (or redesign) your profile accordingly.

Improving your profile may not be as hard as you think if you break it down into steps and try a few every week. Here are 5 simple tips to help your LinkedIn profile reflect the professional you really are!

1. Join a group. Try joining one or more that are related to your field or the business areas of your customers. You will get a better understanding of not only what’s happening in your market, but issues your customers face that you can potentially solve. Also consider exploring groups associated with your college alumni and local and national networking groups.

2. Ask for recommendations. Including referrals on your profile reinforces your professional identity online and adds a personal touch. Try reaching out to colleagues, customers or even former bosses. You can choose which ones to display, but we recommend no more than 10 - 15, otherwise it dilutes their effectiveness. And make sure you return the favor.

3. Complete your company profile (or work with your marketing person to do so on behalf of your company). Company pages provide a way to describe your products and services, identify team members and give people an easy way to contact you. Once it is complete, you can create LinkedIn ads to promote it, and include your custom url in your marketing materials.

4. Create a powerful "headline." This is the text directly beneath your name (or your company’s name) on your LinkedIn profile. You have 120 characters available to describe what you do, so use keywords that describe your business or you. Most people look at this headline when they are searching on LinkedIn, so don’t neglect it!

5. Identify 5 Facebook friends with whom you have not yet connected via LinkedIn and extend an invitation to connect. This extends your network, and can possibly build your business. How else will you get referrals from friends and family if they don’t know what you do?

LinkedIn has been around longer than Facebook or Twitter, although it often gets overshadowed by these social media giants. Spend some time researching its capabilities in the LinkedIn Learning Center and pick 5 new things to do every week. You might be surprised how effective LinkedIn is and how simple it is to maximize your LinkedIn presence!

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At OnMark’s recent Social Made Simple seminar, we had an attendee pose a great question: If you sell a service, and not a “widget,” what’s the best way to use social media?

This is often particularly challenging to those in the heavily regulated financial, healthcare or banking industries. But before you give up entirely on integrating tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter into your communications strategy, consider doing a little research and testing out a few simple ways to use social media in the service industry.

Do Your Homework

The service industry is competitive. Check to see what your competitors are doing online and in the social media space. If aspects of their approach align with your business goals, try putting your own twist on it.

Also, if you are in a highly regulated industry, you may have advertising and marketing rules that apply. Make sure you are aware of these before embarking on a social media strategy. Your staff needs to be on board and have clear policies regarding their use of social media under your company’s brand.

Move Your Offline Methods Online

You likely have several marketing assets in print format. Try repurposing these for online use, where it makes sense, but make sure you adjust the message accordingly. For example:

1. Tune-up reminders. Whether you are an accountant, a financial advisor or a body shop, your customers can benefit from regular tune-ups related to the service you provide. This could include a quarterly budget review, or a tax reminder. You can put these messages on Facebook and/or Twitter on a regular basis.
2. Improved customer service. The more open channels of communication you offer, the better your service is perceived. Where are your customers going online when they have questions or feedback? Be there, and be prepared to respond using the same social channel.
3. Lead generation. Develop relationships outside of your service that can lead to referrals. Think about offering personal information about yourself and your hobbies that might open up a dialog with someone new. Once they have a relationship with you, it opens the door to referrals.
4. Education. Instead of selling your services, educate your customers about a “lifestyle”-related topic that indirectly aligns with your service offerings. For example, an insurance company can use social media to talk about safe driving. A hospital might use social media to discuss nutritional information.
5. Consider starting conversations online and finishing them offline. If a customer poses a question that involves sensitive information, have a service representative phone them directly, if possible, and post a response that says you will do so.

This year, a few major firms such as Morgan Stanley and Securities America announced they will allow their employees to use social media.

Another helpful article is “How to Engage in Social Media in Regulated Industries.”

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Make the most of your family camping experience and the environment with these tips:

• Travel local - use less gas and less travel time.
• Borrow or rent instead of buying camping gear.
• Use LED lights for flashlights and lanterns.
• Host your campfire or cookouts using reusable plates and dishes.
• Opt for a tent instead of a camper.
• Use organic bug repellent and citronella candles instead of chemical-based repellents.
• Don't forget to get rid of your garbage by recycling or disposing before leaving! And if the campground doesn't recycle, bring your recycling home.

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Planning your summer vacation? Calculate the cost of driving anywhere in the U.S., including your carbon footprint, at www.costtodrive.com.

Turn off your tap water while brushing your teeth and washing up and save more than 200 gallons of water a month.

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At a recent seminar, we heard a social media expert say that marketers need to spend at least 10 hours a week researching, posting, Tweeting, monitoring and responding in order to execute a successful social media strategy. This guideline seems reasonable if social media management is a key aspect of your job description, but what if you wear other hats like many of our small business clients do? Does that mean your social media efforts are wasted if you can’t even spend a fraction of that time?

At OnMark, we’ve become skilled at customizing online marketing strategies to both business goals and internal resources. We believe that while 10+ hours a week may be ideal, it is not realistic for many companies and that there are ways to manage these social media efforts, achieve results and still focus on your core business.

So what if you only can dedicate 2 hours a week to social media? What should you do to make the most of your time?

Start small and focus on the Big 3: Email, Facebook and Twitter. There are an overwhelming number of social media outlets, many of which may or may not make sense for your company. But if you opt to tackle the ones people are the most active on, you’re off to a great start. Consider establishing or enhancing an email marketing program. Set up a Twitter and/or Facebook account and get a conversation started on around something that is relevant to your target audience. 

Use a free social media monitoring and management tool like HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com). Using HootSuite’s dashboard feature, you can monitor and post to multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. You can also write and schedule messages ahead of time so they are sent when it makes the most sense for your audience.

Establish a monthly “editorial calendar” in advance. Take one hour and brainstorm or send an email to various functions in your company and enlist their help. What are the most frequently asked questions they receive? What are important industry trends and news items you can comment on or post links to in Facebook or Twitter? Mix in some seasonal and/or personal entries and you’ve got a good mix of messages that you can cycle through as needed.

Sign up for Google Alerts (www.google.com/alerts) and other tools to automatically receive email updates on what’s being said about your brand, the competition and your industry. This service delivers the information to your in-box daily or weekly. Regularly scanning the alerts helps keep social media messages timely and can give you ideas on what others in your industry are doing with their social media strategy.

Consider outsourcing the more time-consuming pieces, such as strategy development, measurement and ongoing planning efforts. There are benefits to letting an online marketing expert help define your overall social media strategy since they have access to the latest tools and resources. You are the content expert so your input is critical, but this gives you the opportunity to influence the overall direction without spending the time researching and developing the plan and budget.

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