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Customer relationships are key to any marketing strategy and having tools that can help you manage and grow those relationships is a must. Implementing a CRM is not difficult and there are many solutions that are cost effective and won't break the bank. A CRM enables you to be more strategic when it comes to your customer relationships and then helps when it comes to serving and developing those business growing relationships.

If there was ever a time that you stayed in touch with your customers it should be today. Relationships are key when it comes to successful and effective marketing.

There is no excuse not to use a CRM tool that helps you to stay in touch with not only your current customers, but also leads that are in your sales pipeline. I recently spent time looking for a customer management solution for a client and I was amazed at the options that are available; not only to large companies but to small and medium sized businesses as well. You can implement a CRM solution for less than $12 per user a month and there are even solutions that are free if you have less than 3 users.

Are you running a CRM to manage and grow your relationships? If not, why? Can you really risk to lose a customer or even a potential customer because you didn't stay in touch? I'm going to assume that the majority of you answer that question with a resounding no.

If you are not using a CRM right now and checking it everyday let me encourage you. I have shared with you the information that I found when searching for a solution and I'm going to share with you my top five CRM solutions that I recommend to businesses. You will see that each solution offers different features and perks, pick the one that fits your needs and begin to implement today. I promise that you will be glad you did.

Your turn: If I did not list your favorite CRM feel free to add it to the comments and tell us why it's your favorite.

Manage and Grow Your Customer Relationships with these Web Based CRM Solutions originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 23:42:10.

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I'm often asked how business-to-business (B2B) marketing is different than business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. Although you are still selling a product or a service to a person the marketing is difference for B2B and B2C. The purchase motivation is different and they have different needs when it comes to the information that they need in order to make the decision to purchase. The differences between these markets run deep and they are important.

When we take time to understand what is needed we have a better chance of closing the deal with a B2B or a B2C market. It's when we ignore the differences that we fail to provide the information and the support to turn a prospective consumer into a customer.

A consumer purchases on emotion and a business purchases on logic. Let me show you the difference in marketing to a B2C market vs. a B2B market.

Your Turn: What differences have you found in marketing to a B2C vs. a B2B market?

Understanding the Difference Between B2B and B2C Marketing originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 22:30:19.

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For those of you interested you can now become a fan of Marketing at About.com on Facebook.

I created the Facebook fan page in order to collaborate with readers on a daily basis as well as give you a community that you could use to ask marketing questions and get to know other readers. I've been wanting to do this for awhile and truthfully it has evolved into a great place for collaboration and discussion.

If you can't get enough of all things marketing-related, you now have an opportunity find people to talk marketing with all day long.

Become a fan, it's easy and I'm sure you will enjoy the community that is developing there.

Become a Facebook Fan originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 09:11:44.

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Recently I shared with you a search engine marketing secret - how to gain market share in Google within your local area. This doesn't take months to do and often can be achieved within a couple of days, if not hours. One reader found themselves struggling with getting a high ranking, because of the competition within their location and industry.

There are ways that you can improve your Google Local Map listing and I wanted to share a few steps that can help in improving your ranking on Google Local.

• Step 1: Claim your Google Local Map listing if you haven't already.
• Step 2: Login to Google Local online.
• Step 3: Verify your information and make sure your description is specific with keywords. Use keywords to describe your location and what your business is by as well as search keywords that customers will use to find you.
  
  
• Step 4: Use keywords in your company and organization name. For example in my Google Local Map listing I used the following as my company and organization name (Keywords are in bold) - Laura Lake Consulting - Small Business Marketing and Social Media Strategy Consulting
• Step 5: Don't forget to categorize your listing and make sure that you complete all 5 categories. The 1st category is the most important, but the next 4 follow in at a close second when it comes to ranking importance. Try to use Google's suggested categories.
• Step 6: Customer reviews will also help in improving your Google local listing rank. Don't write your own review, but ask your customers for a recommendation.

The secret is that Google focuses rank mostly on the businesses closes to the center of the city. If you are not near the center of the city the prior steps are vital to improving the rank of your Google Local Map listing in order to compete with the businesses that are closer to the center of the city than you.

6 Steps to Improving the Rank of Your Google Local Map Listing originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 06:39:11.

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It's no doubt social media is changing the way that we market. There are new social media platforms appearing daily, so how do you as a business owner or marketing manager know which platform is right for you? There are many deciding factors that go into selecting a social media marketing platform. A few of those questions include:

• Where is my demographic?
• What is my marketing goal when it comes to social media? Am I looking to bring awareness or sell something?

Today I want to focus on why businesses select Twitter as their social media marketing platform. We can learn a lot from the stats that are published. Stats including the following data:

• 50 Million Tweets per day
• 75 Million Twitter users
• Reach outside of the U.S. has grown over the last 6 months

While the statistics are impressive, there are also reports that Twitter registrations have decreased and there are many inactive Twitter accounts.

I think the best way to learn about what is working and what is not working when it comes to using Twitter as a marketing tool is to listen to the stories of others, so I'm asking my readers the question:

Why Do You Use Twitter to Market?

*Statistics by Twitter, Hubspot, Sysmos and ComputerWorld

Share Your Story: Why Do You Use Twitter to Market? originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 10:53:59.

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Question: Can you make for us a list of marketing tools available for local businesses and rank it by efficiency?

Answer: There are many ways to get a list of local businesses. The quality of the list will be determined on how you obtain the list.

You can search online for local businesses. Google and Yahoo both have local business directories. DMOZ also used to have a great directory, but to be honest I'm not sure how often it is updated. What I love about these directories is the ability to search by geographic region as well as industry.

You can purchase lists by list brokers such as InfoUSA.

You can also check with your local Chamber of Commerce about purchasing their membership list. I know they sell it because when I joined the chamber I was getting at least one telemarketing call a day.

The cost of the list will determine how much work you are willing to put into it and what type of data you are interested in, for example do you want their address, telephone number or email address? You can also find the data online for free, but it will cost you time and resources.

Your Turn: How do you find local businesses that you want to market to?

Marketing Question of the Week: Where Do I Find a List of Local Businesses? originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 08:00:26.

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There was a time, not too long ago that advertising online was an option. There were some businesses that considered it, some embraced it and others just ignored it. In today's business world we are seeing a paradigm shift if you will. There are new online methods and techniques that are become not only more efficient in reaching our consumers, but they are cost effective as well.

To prove my point consider the latest statistic provided by Internet World Stats, we have seen an increase of 380.3% of internet users since 2000. This number will only continue to grow.

Consumers are not only becoming more comfortable purchasing online, but many of them are starting to prefer online shopping to traditional shopping. We can use online marketing to reach these consumers in new ways. Online marketing enables us to target our marketing messages to specific consumers and the end result is better conversion and an increased return on our investment for our marketing dollars.

There are many methods of marketing online including website marketing, search engine marketing, social media, affiliate marketing and content marketing. It's important that each business weighs the pros and cons of each method and then choose the method or methods that will work best for their business. I've put together information regarding five popular online marketing methods and what I think each business should consider when delving into the online space to market products or services. I believe these steps will help in creating an effective online marketing strategy and increase the chances of online marketing success.

Online Marketing A Necessity Not Just An Option originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Sunday, February 21st, 2010 at 15:40:32.

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Ok, quick pick up the last marketing piece that you did for your business.  Now ask yourself the following questions:

• Were you overwhelmed with calls?

• Did your in-store traffic increase?

• Did you see a spike in your online traffic?

If  you answered no to all of the questions above you may want to consider whether your marketing materials are doing the job.

Marketing professionals often make the mistake of writing material that emphasis the business background and brand rather than the benefits that a company offers. This creates a challenge when these materials are given to the a sales team as collateral. Learn how to create marketing materials that sell.

Do Your Marketing Materials Make the Grade? originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 00:00:22.

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Many businesses are trying to figure out how to use social media to grow their business and increase their revenue. The industries of restaurants and entertainment is no different.

I'm always surprised at how many of these businesses are not using social media, but for most, it boils down to the lack of knowledge on how to use this new medium to create commerce in their businesses. Commerce won't come overnight; that I can guarantee you, but by getting involved and adopting social media as a way to engage and interact with your customers and patrons you will find that commerce will come sooner than later.

Social media works best in this industry because, as a society we attend restaurants and entertainment districts to be social and interact. Those who enjoy these venues also find enjoyment in social media. They will often look for you in these social venues and if they don't find you it can come as a disappointment; after all they'd love it if they had an easy way of finding out what was going on, want new menu times you are introducing or what events are coming up.

I understand your hesitation which is why I want to share with you ten way to use social media to market your restaurant or entertainment district.

Ten Ways Restaurant and Entertainment Industries Can Use Social Media to Market originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 18:19:44.

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I'm often asked "Laura, what is the biggest mistake companies make when it comes to marketing?" The answer is easy.

The biggest mistake, I see is when a company doesn't track their marketing efforts. They simply spend their marketing budget and then they cross their fingers. There was a time that it was difficult to track marketing efforts, especially commercials and print advertisements. That's not the case any longer, so there is really no excuse to not tracking your marketing efforts.

Tracking and monitoring your marketing efforts and advertisements will help you in allocating your marketing budget in marketing campaigns that you know will work. There is nothing more devastating to a company than to spend money on an advertisement that produces little or no results.

You can track your offline marketing efforts, so that you have the knowledge that you need when it comes to knowing what worked and what didn't. The result of tracking is an accurate measurement of what marketing efforts were effective and no longer depending on inaccurate guesswork to determine where you spend your marketing budget. Let me share with you a few tracking methods that I use when marketing offline.

Your Turn: How do you track your offline marketing? Do you use a different method that I have not mentioned? I'd like to know.

Methods for Tracking Offline Marketing Efforts originally appeared on About.com Marketing on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 13:31:20.

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