Category Archive: Interactive Marketing

Kevin Adams 0

How Websites Are Crucial To Offline Sales

It’s an old rule with a new twist: getting customers in the door is only half the sales battle.

According to Web Pro News:

9 out of 10 mobile Internet users have accessed the mobile web while at a store, according to a new study from Yahoo and Nielsen. Furthermore, 51% of those users indicate that they make a purchase after doing research on their mobile device.

In other words, nearly half of all mobile internet use inside of stores is used by customers to do things like check out product reviews, compare prices with other stores, etc. In fact, the study showed that 16 percent of people who use mobile web inside stores do it for shopping research (comparing, say, your prices to those from another store), and another 57 percent of mobile internet users (and 41 percent of non-mobile users) said they’d like to do exactly that in the near future.

Three takeaways:

Be Preemptive For Customers in Your Store

If you anticipate what kind of questions they’ll be asking or concerns they might be looking online to assuage, you might be able to keep them from looking around in the first place. Also, go that extra mile to reassure customers that they’re getting a fair deal, and they’ll be less likely to feel compelled to check.

Be Ready and Waiting For Customers Elsewhere

Have a mobile-friendly website design, and have one that appeals to the sorts of things customers are searching for: prices, features, benefits, and product reviews. Again, anticipate what customers we’ll be searching for on their smartphones, and you can achieve the function that they were about to demand from the world wide web.

Make It Easy For Customers to Share

It’s the age of Twitpics and texting, and customers often want to shoot quick pictures of a product out to family or friends before deciding whether or not to buy. Find creative ways to make your product stand out, and snaps of it will get passed around.

Similarly, “check-in” location-based apps like FourSquare and Gowalla can be used to create a bit of buzz about your business, if a bunch of people are all benefiting from a discount or deal on the same day.

 
Kimber Cook 1

Facebook Places FAQ — How LBS Can Help Your Business

phone-placesWhat is Facebook Places?

It’s Facebook’s new location-based service (LBS), built on a Bing Maps platform, and it’s a giant twist in the race between all the major search engines and social media platforms to perfect local search capabilities. LBS allows mobile smartphone users to broadcast out via Twitter, Facebook, or LBS-specific platforms where they are at any particular moment, and what they think about it.

Facebook’s version is similar to popular apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, where users “check in” via their smartphone wherever they go, broadcast their whereabouts on Twitter, and sort of compete for titles by spending the most time at a particular place (who wants to be mayor of the 45th St. McDonald’s?? I’m personally the mayor of Masterlink Interactive and DFWSEM Dallas Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association :-) ). If you have a Twitter feed, and if you have noticed an increase of one-line “I am here”-type tweets (helpful or annoying, depending on how you use Twitter), you can thank LBS.

The appeal is obvious: Let’s say you’re at a huge shopping mall—LBS can help you meet up with friends who happen to be there as well. Or let’s say you go to a concert. You “check in,” and your other LBS-using friends who you didn’t realize were at the same show see it. Commence arm-in-arm anthem-swaying.

What’s different about Facebook’s version?

The easy integration into its pre-existing platform makes Facebook’s version a natural development. Whereas Foursquare and Gowalla have to piggyback off of unattached third-party technologies like Twitter, Facebook can tailor its product specifically to seamlessly integrate into the ever-evolving strengths of its site, like newsfeeds and user walls.

Furthermore, half a billion people already use Facebook, making it far more likely for this sort of LBS usage to hit critical mass. Foursquare and Gowalla have really just been early-adopters apps, popular mostly in the tech crowd. Facebook could do for LBS what Apple did for mp3s.

Why does it matter for businesses?

Basically, it brings companies and regular Facebook users much closer together. Your friend “checks in” at a coffee shop they like, and Facebook posts it on the Places page, the customer’s wall, and the customer’s newsfeed. It’s free publicity—and a link back to the cafe’s Places page, where they can promote themselves with gusto.

Right now, most companies on Facebook have carved out their niche via a Fan Page—the profiles we talked about last week that allow businesses to connect and converse with customers, and broadcast information and announcements. If you haven’t started a Fan Page for your business yet, we highly recommend it.

According to Search Engine Land, most business Fan Pages will eventually morph into Facebook Places pages, with a heavier emphasis on maps and real-time updating. A local search function will eventually be integrated in, as well.

In other words, your Places page registers you as a dot on the map. It’s an important dot.

How can I capitalize on this?

Let’s say you’re a Thai restaurant in Dallas, and you announce a big one-day discount on pumpkin curry on your Places page. It’s a smashing success, and Facebook-using curry cravers are beating down the door to get their fix. If several of them “check in” and comment about the discount, it’ll create a buzz on Facebook that spreads your brand and attracts more customers.

Furthermore, Places can let you keep an eye on your competiton (what kinds of deals and discounts they’re offering, and what kind of feedback they’re getting). Pay attention, and who knows what you might learn.

And if you’re really savvy, you could find ways to offer incentives for Facebook users to stop by and check in. The possibilities are endless.

 
Jeff Davis 0

Online Video and Internet Marketing – The World is Watching

Say it smart. Say it with heart. And say it in as many different ways as possible.

Some interesting stats were released this week from a new Nielsen Three Screen Report about how people are watching online video.

According to Web Pro News:

video-online-mobileHigh-speed broadband access, now in 63.5 percent of homes, has created a better user experience for watching online videos and nearly a quarter of households have smartphones, allowing people to “place shift” and watch video anywhere.

Despite the common perception that viewers of videos on mobile phones are mostly teens, more than half (55%) are adults aged 25-49. While mobile online video viewing is still fairly limited, year over year growth is notable at 51.2%.

[…]Also in the first quarter 138 million people watched video on the Internet spending on average 3 hours, 10 minutes.

When it comes to mobile video, 20.3 million watched mobile video in the U.S., spending on average 3 hours and 37 minutes each month.

So online video is officially mainstream. How do these stats affect your web design and Internet marketing strategy?

Basically, it just means that there’s more and more reason to effectively integrate video into your comprehensive web presence. It can pay big dividends: Catchy content tends to get passed around. Shared links both spread your message and boost search engine rankings. Video platforms like YouTube give viewers the chance to respond and interact with your company. And with the rise of mobile video, these elements could be targeted in ways that will benefit users on-the-go, potentially giving your company a critical edge.

In other words, there are limitless ways now to creatively reach potential customers.

At Masterlink Interactive , we recommend a multi-faceted approach to Internet marketing and web design. All of our clients provide great products and services—our goal is just to help broadcast those impressive capabilities via as many different platforms as are needed to reach their potential customers. Different people will respond to different modes of communication, so it’s important to modify your message where possible.

Beyond video, this also means integrating elements into your web design like social media marketing, flash design, and e-mail marketing.

Contact our Dallas interactive marketing experts to learn more about video elements in web design and internet marketing.

 
Zak Eddington 0

Meet the iPad: Do you need a tablet-friendly web site?

Masterlink Interactive Web Site on the iPad

The iPad has arrived with gusto. It’s hardly the first, but it’s definitely not the last. This week Dell announced plans for their own tablet computer, following similar announcements by, well, just about every other tech company with an interest in staying competitive. Even money says another company or two or six reveals plans for a tablet next week.

So what does this mean for your Internet marketing strategy? Do you now need a regular site, a mobile site, and some weird tablet-oriented hybrid of both? Three sites?

According to R2Integrated:

Because the iPad is now a receiving device, count on the creation of an entire Internet-based or e-based advertising platform around it. This will usher in a new era of services offered by digital marketing companies, ad agencies, brand managers, and more, and you will actually witness a new advertising model evolving very quickly—not unlike the advertising paradigm that evolved on laptops with the first generation of Internet publishing.

Kikabink News points out that NPR and the Wall Street Journal already have iPad versions of their own sites. And ReadWriteWeb sums it with an almost grim take on the new Internet marketing reality:

Thanks to varying screen sizes and differing feature sets (most notably Apple’s refusal to allow Flash on their mobile devices), those who want to provide compelling content to all their site visitors will be forced to re-code their site multiple times. Publishers without the resources to do so will have to make a tough choice — remove the unsupported content and the media that makes it slow to load on mobile devices entirely? Or leave it be and risk losing their mobile audience instead? That’s a “Sophie’s Choice” no one wants to make. Unfortunately, in a down economy where money is tight, that may be just what happens.

So what’s next for Internet marketing — sites that are 3D compatible?

If your company is just starting to dip its toe into the Internet marketing game, and hasn’t even started thinking about a mobile-friendly site yet — take a deep breath. Look at the coming spread of iPads and other “tablets” as an opportunity — not a burden. Because while iPhone app makers are scrambling to redesign their apps specifically for the iPad—and while, yes, it might become advantageous to develop iPad-oriented versions of your company’s website—an iPad site isn’t something you’ll necessarily need right away.

Why? Let’s take a look at how iPads will probably be used:

They’re small, accesible and can operate easily on mobile 3G networks via the same operating system as the iPhone. This means they’ll likely be used similarly to smartphones, whose users are often seeking quick, easily accessible information on the fly like phone numbers and driving directions.

But iPads also feature bigger screens and touchscreen keyboards, meaning users are more likely to rely on them for more typical web browsing than they would a smartphone.

So build an easy-to-use mobile version with easy access to your more-developed regular site, and you’ll have something for both of the iPad’s primary uses. Worry about more iPad-specific tweaks when the industry that sprouts up around the new technology shakes out a bit.

For now, there are a few changes to be aware of. Take AdWords targeting, for example:

AdWords users who feel an urge to target iPad owners can now do so without reaching out to people carrying Android devices and iPhones, as well. Google’s added an option to its “networks and devices” screen that’ll allow advertisers to adopt a narrow focus.

A post on the Inside AdWords blog announced late yesterday, “[W]e feel confident adding the iPad to the list of mobile devices that you can target specifically. To do this, simply edit the ‘Devices’ section in your Campaign Settings, and select the iPad under ‘Advanced device and carrier options.’”

More research will show in time just how people are using the iPads, and the best methods for businesses to target them. Of course, we’ll keep you updated.

 
Stuart Frazier 0

Twittertising – Twitter Advertising With Promoted Tweets

Apparently, providing 100 million people a free service with no way to make money from it isn’t a lasting business strategy.

Twitter (finally) began trying to capitalize on their enormous success when it rolled out a form of limited advertising last week. We’ve been expecting this move. Curious about it. Even rooting for it, because we assumed it would be something innovative that would change the Dallas Internet marketing landscape. And now it’s here.

Well… almost.

According to the TimesOnline:

Last week at Chirp, its first conference for software developers, the firm revealed it has almost 106m registered users and is adding 300,000 a day

Twitter’s popularity hasn’t been in doubt, but the firm’s management has been bugged by constant questions about how they will spin those tweets into gold. “As much as we want to tell people to shut the hell up, it’s important,” said co-founder Ev Williams last week.

Plan A is an advertising platform called Promoted Tweets that will serve up ads based on keywords in Twitter search queries. [...]

For critics, the plan doesn’t come close to justifying Twitter’s $1 billion (£650m) valuation. Promoted Tweets, however, is just the start. What Twitter does next is worrying many of the people who have propelled it to the top.

Basically, the move is just a first step. To understand how it works, take Starbucks for one popular example. Currently, if you Twitter search “coffee,” the first result is clearly identified as “Promoted by Starbucks Coffee” from the Starbucks Twitter feed. Even when new results pop up, the Promoted Tweet keeps the top spot. The ad changes whenever the company chirps out something new (every few days or so) specifically for that purpose.

Starbucks Sponsored Tweet

Starbucks Sponsored Tweet

It works well for instant updates about promotions and catchy one-liner ads, and it takes a more subtle, conversational approach to advertising.

And it’s an interesting idea because, well, the ads are required to work. Twitter is leery of any sort of intrusive advertising that would slow the microblogging platform’s explosive growth, and it seems like it doesn’t want any sponsored dead weight clogging users’ search results. So if the Tweet doesn’t catch on (via retweets and click-throughs ) they change it. According to Twitter co-founder Biz Stone: “There is one big difference between a Promoted Tweet and a regular Tweet. Promoted Tweets must meet a higher bar—they must resonate with users.”

Let’s think about that — essentially, ads will only be allowed if they are effective. That might sound like an unusual burden, but it also reduces the risk of investing a bunch of money in a failing ad campaign. The success of this aspect is one we’ll follow closely.

So how you can make Twitter advertising work for your Social Media marketing strategy?

Well, so far, Twitter is experimenting with only a few highly visible partners, like Red Bull, Best Buy, Bravo, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America. And, so far, the ads are limited to search results. But all this could soon change.

According to Stone, Twitter is just taking it one step at a time:

“Before we roll out more phases, we want to get a better understanding of the resonance of Promoted Tweets, user experience and advertiser value. Once this is done, we plan to allow Promoted Tweets to be shown by Twitter clients and other ecosystem partners and to expand beyond Twitter search, including displaying relevant Promoted Tweets in your timelines in a way that is useful to you.”

“Since all Promoted Tweets are organic Tweets, there is not a single “ad” in our Promoted Tweets platform that isn’t already an organic part of Twitter. This is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. Promoted Tweets will also be timely. Like any other Tweet, the connection between you and a Promoted Tweet in real-time provides a powerful means of delivering information relevant to you at the moment.”

So you’ll have to be patient. But, as WebProNews reminds us, Twitter can already be put to work for your business in a variety of ways:

  1. Get in front of journalists. More of them are using Twitter and Facebook according to a recent study.
  2. Use things like Twitter share buttons on content to promote sharing of content (once it’s been tweeted, it may get retweeted repeatedly).
  3. Remember that brands on Facebook and Twitter are favored by consumers.
  4. You can learn some things about audience engagement from Justin Bieber. Seriously.
  5. Get found in real-time search (here are some tips for that).

Stay tuned. We’ll keep you updated here on the blog as well as on the Masterlink Interactive Twitter page. Follow Us!

Stuart Frazier | Operations Manager for Masterlink Interactive

 
Kevin Adams 1

The MapQuest Comeback – How Local Search & Mobile Search Can Help Your Business

If it seems like your business is only as good as its dot on an online smartphone map, well… you might not be that far from the truth.

Masterlink Interactive on Mapquest Mobile

Masterlink Interactive on Mapquest Mobile

Location-based searching matters—more than ever—in the Internet marketing world. In fact, Google reported that nearly a third of its searches now pertain to the searcher’s location. In other words: “Tire shops near Beltline” or {ahem} “Internet marketing gurus in Dallas off 75 Central.”

As we discussed last week, it has everything to do with the rise of smartphones and mobile web design, and the ballooning expectation for and reliance upon the ability to access important information on the fly.

Perhaps no company understands the importance of capitalizing on this trend than online map and direction giving/business searching/real-life maze solving site MapQuest. Despite helping pioneer the online map and driving direction world, MapQuest has been bleeding market share to competitors like Google Maps for years.

But the company saw smartphones as its way back into the game, and jumped at the chance to carve out a niche with its MapQuest Navigator iPhone app. In addition to the comprehensive maps it offers, the site has loaded up with nifty bells and whistles that capitalize on why smartphone users are relying on such maps in the first place.

It added its own “streetview” function, allowing users to become more familiar with an area before arriving there. There’s voice-guided “turn-by-turn” navigation and route-optimization. There’s a search for local businesses (parking garages, coffee shops, gas stations, etc.) along each route. It even boasts a mapped-out gas prices tracker.

More importantly (at least from a Internet marketing perspective), it features a host of information sharing and searching capabilities, like Facebook connectivity that allows users to share location-based recommendations more easily (and access others’ recommendations).

Apparently, with its finger on the pulse of the mobile searching community, this new approach is working:

“We’re one of the most downloaded applications on the iPhone, despite the fact that other options are built in,” said MapQuest CEO David Cole to WebProNews. The site reached nearly 50 million unique visitors in July 2009.

So how can you make location-based searching work for your Dallas-area business?

Contribute information to online map sites. MapQuest is encouraging local businesses to submit information like menus, coupons, and contact information.

A mobile-friendly website matters, as does an awareness of your clientele. If they’re local, design your SEO local. If you’re pita stop in Plano, don’t spend all your effort trying to conquer the Google search rankings for “great Middle Eastern food,” or even “Dallas Middle Eastern restaurants.” Try “Middle Eastern food in Plano” instead. You’ll be competing against a more narrow search term field, and smartphone users with a hankering for falafel will thank you — and use those MapQuest features to help others thank you as well.

Let your customers do the work for you. If your product is worth sharing, it will find its way onto Twitter, Facebook, MapQuest and more. You just need to lay the groundwork with a site that responds to their searches (and a product that makes them think you’re worth sharing).

 
Brenda Molloy 0

There’s More to High Conversion Rates Than Great SEO Practices

Ok, so my SEO gurus are not going to like my title, but it’s true! Now don’t get me wrong, my SEO Specialists are the BEST and they do an excellent job of getting that wonderfully sought after target audience to your website. However, what happens when the user gets to your site? Is it easy to use? Is it compelling for the visitor? Does the web design look professional? Does it look trustworthy? Is it outdated?

seo billboardA billboard or newspaper advertisement can be used to drive foot traffic to your brick and mortar store, but if the store is dirty, the merchandise is not properly organized and the service is poor, you will not make the sale. The same is true for your website – probably even more so! Whether you are selling a product or a service, your prospective online customer is going to make a judgment about your company before ever talking to a real live person or stepping into that million dollar office you occupy.

That old saying, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression” was never more relevant than today. If that visitor to your site hits the dreaded “back” button before visiting anything more than your homepage (referred to as the bounce rate), you are dead in the water. They will not be coming back.

Now is a great time to take a retrospective look at your current site and see what can be done to catch those visitors that are coming to the site. Some great ideas for drawing those visitors in might be:

  • Incorporate some interesting Flash animation to your site that also provides a valuable message to the user that will entice them to want to learn more. Don’t use movement just to see something move – your visitors do not want to be entertained.
  • Prominently place a call to action on your homepage.
  • Offer some type of online-only value to the visitor, a special coupon, discount, free evaluation, etc. Make sure this information is front and center when they come to your site.
  • This may sound simple, but put your phone number and a contact us button on your homepage – users do not want to hunt for that information.
  • The homepage should be clean and clutter-free – don’t have too many messages fighting for attention.
  • Make sure the content is fresh and new – add a press release, new blog posting.
  • Remove any annoying music, sound or auto-launching video.
  • Employ a tagline that tells the user exactly what you do – no “cutesy” or “creative” taglines.
  • If your site looks like it was designed more than 2 years ago – START OVER.

We have seen conversion rates as high as 30% on sites that are well designed with great SEO that really targets the correct visitor. Even if you are getting conversions with your current site, study your online statistics – you could be missing out on a lot of potential new business.

 
Kimber Cook 0

Google Improves Flash Indexing For SEO

Google recently made another announcement regarding their Flash indexing capabilities. Last year they announced they had learned to crawl and index Adobe Flash content. At that time I covered the announcement with my opinion that Google’s indexing of Flash content does not equal that of properly optimized HTML content. This time around the improvements seem to be based on googlebot’s interaction with Flash content, such as clicking buttons as well as improved indexing of external files.

To date, when Google encounters SWF files on the web, we can:

  • Index textual content displayed as a user interacts with the file. We click buttons and enter input, just like a user would.
  • Discover links within Flash files.
  • Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file.
  • Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.
  • Index sites scripted with AS1 and AS2, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated. Update on June 19, 2009: We index sites with AS3 as well. The ActionScript version isn’t particularly relevant in our Indexing process, so we support older versions of AS in addition to the latest.

The blog post uses an example that shows Flash content in an external file ranking in Google results where it was not previoulsy. The query [2002 VW Transporter 888] returns this result:

Flash indexed

When checking the source code of the resulting page the searched for terms do not appear. Checking Google’s cache of the page shows us that the phrase is not found on the page.

Google Flash content cache

You can see that Google shows us their default message when the text is not found in the HTML source of the page, “These terms only appear in links pointing to this page”.  I checked both Yahoo Site Explorer and SEOmoz’s LinkScape and both reported zero links to the page. So, yes, I think that proves that Google is not only indexing Flash but also ranking the content.

However, I’d like to see an example of a competitive phrase contained only in Flash content ranking well in Google. The phrase “2002 VW Transporter 888″ is obviously not very competitive with only around 23k pages appearing for the phrase in Google’s index of billions of pages. Until I see Flash content ranking for competitive phrases I will still recommend to all of my clients that all of their desired keywords are contained within properly optimized HTML text on the page.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I’m not entirely against using Flash as part of interactive web design. MasterLink uses Flash in many new web sites as part of the overall design. But HTML text will always be the focus for competitive SEO as far as I am concerned.

SEOMoz posted their SEO Best Practices today and gave their opinion on SEO and Flash:

Although we believe the search engines can crawl Javascript and Flash in a limited capacity, we choose not add the risk. Their ability to parse these languages is inferior to their ability to parse HTML and choosing to code in the former can lead to lower search engine rankings.

I wholeheartedly agree. What do you think about this announcement from Google? Will it change the way you SEO your sites?

 
Kevin Adams 0

Real-Time Search Is A Game-Changer

Real-time search is one of the newest battlegrounds on the web. In fact, history may show real-time search as the development that saved social media sites like Twitter and Facebook as stand-alone entities.

clock1

You see, despite all of the growing attraction of web users to social media sites, the ugly truth is that most social media sites have never been able to show a long-term profit. Myspace has been the exception since completing a 3 year, $900 million advertising contract with Google in 2006, but there is no way to know whether Myspace will be able to maintain their Google contract or their profitability.

One common way of start-up companies making money is to auction their business to the best offer such as when Google bought Youtube. There have been rumors of numerous companies from Microsoft to Google and even Apple buying up Twitter.

Real-time search may just re-define how users use the internet. It is the ultimate combination of search and social media. Searching real-time information allows engines that provide the service to display as results that are happening across the web without delay. Since social media postings are updated frequently they are easily able to gain dominance in this sort of platform over traditional articles or blogs. Combining these results with ads seems to be the obvious sought after answer to the profitability questions. Below are some of the hottest real-time search engines across the web.

General Real Time Search

Collect.com
Collecta: This site has not quite reached beta, but the home page does provide two example sneak-peaks. The layout is likely to change before it gets to beta.

Google Real-Time Search
Google: Google recently launched a number of new features, and real-time search is one of them. This is found by doing a search from the Google main page, and then selecting “show options” directly under the Google logo. One of the options available is “Past 24 Hours”. Larry Page recently discussed real-time search at the Google Zeitgeist conference in the UK. It is difficult to imagine Google being left behind in anything search-related. The results from this page appear to contain very few, if any social media pages, so it is possible that Google is focused on displaying links that come from already trusted sources.

OneRiot.com
OneRiot: From the searches I’ve done this site also appears to show links indexed from posts on social media sites purely. They appear to rank the posts by popularity (re-tweets, diggs, ect. ) and how recently they were posted. Each link shows the original author’s logo or profile picture that posted the indexed link so that credit is given. While each of the sites give credit to the original posting author, this extra step may be the distinguishing feature makes OneRiot more favorable. The layout is a basic vertical format.

Scoopler.com
Scoopler: My favorite between each of these has been a toss-up between Scoopler and OneRiot. Scoopler appears to index any links it from posts all over the web as fast as possible, though I did not notice any repeat links. While this allows for seeing a lot of information this also allows for a site like Twitter to dominate the results. To combat one domain dominating the results the site provides popular searches and popular links that are posted throughout the web. The site also automatically displays the next result on the page without requiring the user to refresh or click a button. The layout is probably the best out of the four general real-time search engines.

Twitter-Based Real Time Search

Twitter Search
Twitter Search: The search feature allows a user to search all of Twitter’s posts for the specific keywords. While the search is only for Twitter users it is a very powerful tool.

TweetMeme.com
TweetMeme: This tries to display Twitter posts by popularity as well as organizing the posts by categories. It has a search option that mimics Twitter Search for the most part, and each link has a button that allows the user to re-Tweet the link in question. There also seems to be a lot of integrating features with Twitter, which may help it keep from being disregarded as Twitter Search expands.

TwitMatic.com
Twitmatic: Much like TweetMeme, Twitmatic tries to integrate with Twitter by having a Twitter login link directly on the page. It only indexes videos posted on Twitter. I tried multiple attempts to search on two different days with no success after at least 10 minutes. This service will need to be at least serviceable to attract users.

 
Jeff Fajans 2

The Perfect Interactive Marketing Solution

When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target. ~George Fisher

Don’t let your desire for perfection get in the way of your marketing goals. Being hesitant and indecisive when forming ideas for your interactive marketing strategy can waste a lot of valuable time. It can also cost you some valuable leads that you would be generating if you had just committed to getting it up and running. Time is money, and the more time you spend not having an effective online marketing solution, the less money you are going to be making.

Some people will spend months or years polishing a business plan, making sure every single detail is examined and estimated, only to find that in practice, it’s not as they imagined it. That’s way too much time wasted planning and thinking, when they should have be doing and learning.

The same is true about your Interactive Marketing Solution. You know that you need to figure something out to stay competitive. All this talk about Web 2.0, corporate blogging, and social media is pretty confusing. It’s scary knowing that you need to do something, yet having no clue on what to do. How can you identify what is right for your company?

Well, the best advice is to let someone (I suggest MasterLink) help you formulate an Interactive Marketing Action Plan. Working with a collaborative Interactive Marketing partner to identify your goals and objectives is a great way to establish what your interactive marketing solution should be. By setting goals, it is then easy to work backwards to discover ways of achieving them. Hey, it turns out you don’t need that corporate blog or the fancy 3-d flash intro after all. Nice!

Marketing is an ongoing process. You discover that your favorite campaigns are not quite as effective as you planned, or that the one you had no hopes for, surprisingly has a high conversion rate. Because the nature of marketing is so volatile, the best strategy is to get it going and just test, tweak, test, tweak, test, etc.

You can come up with millions of excuses not to get a website up, not to set up a Pay-Per-Click campaign to drive traffic to your company’s product pages, or not to start utilizing Search Engine Optimization to increase your business’ online visibility and credibility. Stop it! Quit making excuses.

Your best option is to start right now before your competition leaves you in their dust. When you spend so much time looking for the “best” choice that you never actually do anything, you are sabotaging your company.

Even if the target is moving, it still is best to shoot. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.