M & A Rainmaker

A TRADITIONAL EDUCATION CAN HELP YOU MAKE A LIVING… OUR DIGITAL EDUCATION WILL HELP YOU LIVE THE LIFE OF YOUR DREAMS.

There are four levels of training Silver, Gold, Platinum and Black.

The objective of this training program is to make YOU totally self sufficient in terms of being able to operate a Digital Marketing System from anywhere in the world with essentially, a laptop and an Internet Connection.

Once you have been through this training program you will have the skills for life – like learning to swim or ride a bike.

A TRADITIONAL EDUCATION CAN HELP YOU MAKE A LIVING… OUR DIGITAL EDUCATION WILL HELP YOU LIVE THE LIFE OF YOUR DREAMS.

There are four levels of training Silver, Gold, Platinum and Black.

The objective of this training program is to make YOU totally self sufficient in terms of being able to operate a Digital Marketing System from anywhere in the world with essentially, a laptop and an Internet Connection.

Once you have been through this training program you will have the skills for life – like learning to swim or ride a bike.

Six Figure Mentor, Chris Windley, is providing advice on Digital Marketing Strategy from the Silicon Crossroads Technopolis in Lichfield, Staffordshire, U.K. serving Lichfield, Tamworth, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall,  Burton on Trent and Derby.

This advice is focused on how to drive traffic ( visitors ) to your blogsite or website, how to convert those visitors into leads and how to turn those leads into actual orders.

The Technopolis has been researching effective internet marketing techniques for the last 8 years and has extensive experience of e.g. Boston, U.S. based HubSpot ( HubSpot are opening a European office in Dublin, Ireland in January 2013 ) whose ” Inbound Marketing” mantra is ” Get Found ( for relevant keywords and phrases ), Convert
( from visitors to leads and leads to orders ) and Analyse ( how you did it ).

The Internet Marketing Ecosystem ( a means of driving web and blogsites to the top of Google search for relevant words and phrases ) was developed at the Technopolis. Work and investment was halted when the Six Figure Mentors ( SFM ) Digital Marketing System was found, a couple of months ago.

The SFM system is a PROVEN system for getting traffic, leads and orders for any business but is particularly suitable for home based entrepreneurs, small and medium sized businesses.

The Six Figure Mentors is a global organisation but Chris is based at the Technopolis near Lichfield, Staffordshire with easy access to Tamworth, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, Burton-on-Trent and Derby.

To find out more about the Six Figure Mentors Digital Marketing System go

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HERE <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Dorset based computer and telecommunications provider Poundbury Systems is dominating Google searches for ” Managed Backup Dorset ” by using a combination of the Internet Marketing Ecosystem ( IME, see link below ) and it’s own hosting facilities and National IP network ( also see below ).

Recently, Poundbury Systems launched a Managed Data Backup service from it’s Headquarters in Dorset. As part of it’s promotional campaign Poundbury Systems wanted to ensure that it was found for relevant searches using Google and similar search engines ( Many potential customers use search engines to obtain information about particular products or services).

Poundbury Systems has a WordPress based website and blogsite which is hosted in Poundbury’s Hosting Facilities in London. It is important to understand that these are high performance U.K. Hosting Facilities ensuring that a properly structured web/blogsite has the best chance of achieving a high Google search position for relevant search terms. ( Whilst the exact influence of website hosting performance on Google ranking is debated amongst SEO experts, the fact that it is a factor is not usually debated ).

The first thing to understand about the use of an Internet Marketing Ecosystem is that you must understand what search terms you want to rank for ( this means what would someone type into the Google etc search box in order to find your products or services ). In this case the products, services and therefore search terms are ” Managed Data Backup ” and similar and related words and phrases.

The ” Managed Data Backup ” blog post below was created to complement the web page dedicated to that subject here – http://www.poundbury.com/futureline-assure/ . So this meant that there was relevant content available. The links to the web page and blog post were then distributed via Poundbury’s Twitter, Twylah and Facebook pages ( amongst others ).

I also shared the links via my personal Internet Marketing Ecosystem.

The results are pretty stunning with Poundbury Systems occupying the first 4 natural search results ( this may be subject to a particular persons search results but has been tested by a number of people ) when there are nearly 6.5 Million search results ( roughly equates to people searching on this term ). Other search positions are also occupied by either the Poundbury web/blogsite or elements of my IME e.g. there is a Twylah post appearing.

There is no Pay Per Click payment being made and no ” Black Hat ” SEO techniques have been used. This is simply achieved by understanding what the company wishes to be found for and writing and distributing relevant content. i.e. Content Marketing.

It is anticipated that this particular blog post will be found by people searching on the phrase ” Internet Marketing in Dorset ” or similar and will therefore be of interest to those who might want to use Poundbury System’s excellent Hosting facilities and the Internet Marketing Ecosystem.

Relevant Links:

Internet Marketing Ecosystem link : http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2012/03/12/the-internet-marketing-ecosystem-this-is-the-way-it-is/

Managed Data Backup link : http://www.poundbury.com/poundbury-launches-fully-managed-data-backup-solution-from-dorset/

Poundbury National IP Network link : http://www.poundbury.com/internet-connection-dorset/

I get loads of comments on my M & A Rainmaker blog. ( ok lots of them are just link spammers – I know ). I read them all and I value them all ( well except the link spammers that write horrible, incomprehensible, inane things and then expect me to approve them ! ).

It has gone way beyond being a place where I wanted to write down my experiences of starting, building and selling companies. In the main it has become a place where my journey through Internet Marketing has been documented. This was a journey that started in the early 2000’s. It was a journey that was driven by a desire to understand how to get found on the Internet. My firm belief was that people would search for information about nearly everything on the Internet – and then, sometimes, they would actually buy. In other words whatever you sold you needed to have a presence on the Internet and you needed to be found for the services and products that you supplied.

Now there are many blogs posts on this website that are meant to be found for certain ( Google ) searches. For example if you search on
” Internet Marketing Strategy Lichfield ” you will find that a couple of blog posts from here rank at at the top and that further down there is a Pinterest link, a Digg link and then a Twylah link. Yes, some social networks will give you search results aswell !!

But I digress, this post was supposed to be about my blog needing a really good sort out.

Actually I think it is a mother beautiful blog. It was designed for me by Nikki Pilkington and I love the colour and the ” clean lines “. It is uncluttered by, well anything really.

What does it need though ??

Well there are a few things that I plan to add sometime:

1. I need links to all my Social Network pages. ( At the moment these are just on the ” Contact Page ” ).

2. I need you to be able to share all my blogs easily on your Social Network pages.

3. I need to put ” Call to Actions ” on my blog posts e.g. at the bottom of this one.

4. I need an email sign-up section ( but this assumes that I am then going to start emailing my email database ).

5. I am thinking about adding ” Skimlinks ” and have actually signed up for it and been approved.

I could put adverts on my blogsite – not sure if I will but I could.

6. I should have some sort of comment spam filter – at the moment I just approve or not comments.

Actually that’s about all I am thinking about.

( Maybe – mobile friendly ?? )

Yeah , I know I should have some pictures here aswell !!

If you have any thoughts then please let me know 🙂

I have recently been using Hubspot’s Marketing Grader to assess how well some of my clients Internet Marketing efforts are working. It is a fantastic tool and looks at not only a company’s website effectiveness but also the supporting Internet ecosystem.

A tool like HubSpot Marketing Grader is vital when trying to work out how easily a person or companies website is being found on the major search engines for relevant search terms and also how well visitors to that website are being converted into prospects and customers.

HubSpot has always looked at Internet Marketing in simple terms: How well are you found ? How effectively do you convert ? What are the statistics that support that process and how can they be improved ?

What I find so often is that people don’t understand what a website is there for. It is there as part of your overall marketing efforts to create leads and convert them to orders.

As a salesperson I completely identify with this view of the world and I say to people ” Treat your website like another salesperson or sales team ” and look at it’s effectiveness in the same way that you would look at the effectiveness of your sales team.

If, as I have done, you were running a salesforce ( in a fairly advanced way ) you would measure things like Activity, Skill and Knowledge and collect information like “How many prospects they have ? ”  “How many proposals they have written ? ” and other data that would give you some indication of the effectiveness of your investment into a salesperson or salesforce.

It is somewhat interesting that HubSpot eschews some of the “old ways ” of prospecting and selling ( broadly lumped into Push Selling or Marketing or Outbound Selling/Marketing e.g. telemarketing, mailshotting etc etc ) whilst utilising many of the same methods of analysing the effectiveness of the ” Pull ” or ” Inbound Marketing ” approach.

Internet Marketing is not just about an effective website it is also about traffic being driven to that website from blogsites and social media and about the effectiveness of e.g. your Facebook campaigns and presence in their own right.

HubSpot’s Marketing Grader gives you a comprehensive checklist to work through but you do have to understand the overall strategy.

Get your Internet Marketing Grade here:

http://marketing.grader.com/

If you need help understanding what to do please contact me.

Here are a couple of links to videos about Marketing Grader

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj80vTmJp4Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlAA18xjKE0

The recent launch of 365 ITMS’s website ( and limited company ) takes me back to the blogs that I did a while ago on the Boiler room scammers. ( I will try and remember to put some links to these articles about share fraud and boiler rooms at the bottom of this article.)

The old company, 365iT plc, never had much idea about Internet marketing ( which always made me wonder how much the company really understood about what was going on in the modern world of high technology ). I think it was a case of the old boys network that had really got – well – one foot in the grave ??

What’s the best we can say about this launch of a new company and website/Internet presence ??

Well – they have a website and they did some press releases. This is actually about the sum total of the Internet repetoire of 365iT’s and 365 ITMS’s Internet marketing team.

Oh – and if you “view source” there’s a few ( hopefully ) relevant keywords in the tags and titles.

If you remember the share fraud scammers blogs then this is about what they did – create a relevant website, makes sure that it’s got the right content and relevant titles and tags and then stick a press release out to ( mostly ) free press release sites that syndicate to others.

If you are a bit of a blagger then you can say to your client – there you go – a fully SEO’d website with full traditional ( if you send it to the
” traditional ” media ) and internet media PR.

What’s the fundamental problem here ??

Well a new website has no ” authority “. It is new to Google ( if it has been submitted that is ) and has relatively low amounts of relevant content. It will not have backlinks. Getting it to attain ” authority ” is going to take time and effort.

The Internet Press Release sites are typically SEO friendly and since PR sites are always getting new content they will probably get Google’s attention. Of course they are filled up with content that is not necessarily relevant to you and over time most of these Press Releases will fade in their authority.

If we  Google ” Web Design Basingstoke ” then we begin to see the problem.

Actually the real problem is this:

Marketing has moved on light years from the old traditional ways and Internet Marketing has really got a bit beyond ” brochure websites ” ! If the only social media site that you understand is Linkedin then ( much though I love Linkedin ) you are really in trouble.

Arguably the failure of 365iT plc has a lot to do with the failure to understand the shift in buyer mentality and the way that customers find you ( particularly using the Internet ).

One of the great lessons to understand is the use of what I call ” Internet platforms ” – more on this in a later article – but WordPress is one of them.

Dear M.D./C.E.O./Owner/Proprietor/Boss,

In letters 1 and 2 we have discussed why you need to put in place a Digital Marketing Strategy.

Let’s just say that all the ” old ways ” of marketing ( so called traditional marketing ) are not quite dead yet. Depending on your business many of them may still be relevant now and for some time but, for sure, the world is changing fast.

In the more recent world the company website was a sort of ” electronic brochure ” or ” presentation ” of your company. It was probably created by ” creatives ” ( graphic designers, marketing people ) or ” programmers ” ( software developers ). You referred people to your website by putting the web address ( url ) on your business cards ( along with your email address, phone and fax numbers ), brochures, mailshots, vans, lorries etc etc.

If the website was found by a Google search on ” your company name” then everything looked good. Or did it ??

The problem is that unless you are a really famous/well known company then people will not search on your company name. They are more likely to search for a product or service which they hope will then lead them to some information and then the best company to supply that product or service.

If say you needed help with your swimming pool in Staffordshire you might Google

” Swimming pool repairs Staffordshire “.

When I did this I got a load of Google maps results ( N.B. !! ), a load of yell.com results ( N.B. ), a company that said it was Staffordshire based but was obviously in Essex !  and one

http://www.leisurelinespas.co.uk/index.asp

that had good information and was in Shropshire – ok,  close enough 😉

This brings us to the first point in the Digital Marketing strategy:

That you must know what you want to be found and known for – your products, your services, your advice and your philosophy – and your website ( and associated blogsite ) must be found by Google for those search terms.

To borrow from my friends at HubSpot the overall mantra is to:

1. Be found ( for relevant search terms )

2. Convert ( visitors into leads )

3. Analyse ( where you got your visitors from and how )

Find-Convert-Analyse.

The second point is that there is very little point in investing time and effort in a Digital Marketing Strategy unless you know where you started ( how many visitors/leads/sales you are getting at the moment – your baseline ) and how you are are progressing in your efforts.

Over time we will suggest that you do many things to drive traffic ( visitors ) to your website e.g. write blogposts, do Internet PR, start and run Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin pages on top of ensuring that you are found for relevant terms but what you must do is to understand what is working and what is not.

Typically your website will have a level of visitors who are finding you directly ( they know your url ) or indirectly ( they know your name and type it into google or they have typed in a search term that has resulted in them finding your website or blogsite ). You will add to this base traffic with referrals from e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or another website or wherever.

You want to know what works ??

Did you get more visitors ( leads and sales ) from blogging, posting on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin ??

Which blogs/posts/Tweets worked and which ones didn’t ???

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/07/05/letter-from-marketing-no-4/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/28/letter-from-marketing-no-2/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/22/letter-from-marketing-no-1/

Internet and Traditional Marketing specialist, Claire Windley, has been shining her light around Shropshire and the U.K.  from a hill above Lightmoor near Ironbridge.

Claire’s Internet Marketing business is known as CSL Design after her initials

http://www.shantay-emerald.co.uk/netshows.html

Claire , who has ridden horses from a young age, is organising the Netley Hall Shows and Events for 2011

http://netleyhallevents.co.uk/contact.html

These shows will take place in May, July and August 2011. These are BSJA events and the second two will be filmed by Sky Sports.

Claire has created an Internet presence for Netley Hall  using, for example,  a website, blog, Facebook and Twitter page.

Claire has been trained by U.S. Inbound Internet Marketing phenomenon, Hubspot, to help her customers get found on the Internet, convert website visitors into leads and analyze the results in a continuous closed loop process.

Claire has also been providing Traditional and Internet Marketing advice to Cisco FutureLine which is one of Cisco’s key partners for the provision of communications solutions to Small and Medium Sized businesses. Shropshire is home to many rapidly growing small and medium sized companies and these companies need to expand their markets beyond Shropshire to the rest of the world.

Claire has extensive experience with the hospitality industry having guided Smith & Williamson’s British Country Inns in their marketing strategy over the last year or so and working with a number of exclusive ” gastro pubs ” and restaurants around the U.K.

Internet Marketing should not be viewed in isolation but should be part of an overall integrated marketing strategy and for that you need someone like Claire who understands all aspects of sales and marketing.