The company’s website is like the company’s front desk which should be presentable and appealing .All the steps in the website should be customer friendly and should lead the customer to make a purchase. Thus avoid too much details in the contents.

Companies that invest in Internet marketing generally fall into two camps: those frustrated because their investment isn’t paying off, and those frustrated because they can’t tell.

Companies address the frustration in a number of ways—changing agencies, changing strategies, tweaking this and tweaking that. However, the vast majority of organizations failing or floundering with Internet marketing make one, two, or all three of the worst mistakes possible and never address them. All the agencies, strategies, and tweaks in the world won’t compensate for errors in these three areas. Fix them, and you are on your way to success in SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, or whatever other online campaigns you’ve got underway.

Mistake 1: Inwardly Focused Writing

The company website is where the magic happens, where conversions (orders or sales inquiries) are won or lost. Most companies mangle the magic by ruining their home and product/service pages with boring, overly detailed, inwardly focused content that fails to give website visitors any intellectual or emotional reason to complete a transaction or request a consultation.

Mistake 2: Lame Calls to Action

Sometimes companies get the content right, and sometimes visitors are so in need they may be willing to convert in spite of awful content. And yet, conversions are still squandered because the company has failed to add strong calls to action to its home and product/service pages.

Mistake 3: No Lead Validation

If you’ve thought about the previous two mistakes before, I’ll bet number three has never crossed your mind—but don’t worry; 99 percent of your competitors are in the same boat.

Lead validation is the process of separating sales leads from other website conversions—spam, sales solicitations, customer service inquiries, etc. Without validation, you will never know how effective your campaigns are, and never be able to improve them efficiently. Very few companies do validation because very few companies realize that as much as 50 percent of their conversions are something other than leads!

Most Internet marketing/web analytics reports lump all conversions together; thus, companies fall into the habit of thinking about conversions as being synonymous with leads. As a result, they overestimate the success of their campaign by as much as half, and they base campaign changes on conversion data, which is inaccurate, rather than on lead data, which is accurate. This error in campaign execution leads to bad decisions; just because a particular keyword or PPC ad generates a lot of conversions doesn’t mean it generates a lot of validated leads.

Both online and offline marketing requires creation so as to stay ahead . It requires one to display confidence in whatever they create .We should not be afraid of failure we should change ideas with time so as to remain relevant.

Online marketing isn’t something you can just through in. These campaigns, just like traditional marketing, require thought.

Online marketing demands that entrepreneurs continue to innovate and evolve.  Be it creatively repackaging products, promotions of services etc, a bit of freshness is sure to create an interest in your business. However, entrepreneurs are often found to refrain or limit their creativity unknowingly.

Studies have proved that there is a pattern to these creative inhibitions. The most common reasons are:

Lack of focus on creation

When creativity is flowing, multi-tasking has to stop, as it disrupts, dilutes focus and does not allow free flow of creative thoughts. Hence, at the first flashes of creativity entrepreneurs need to concentrate and let the ideas seep through and evaluate at a later point of time. Experts say set goals and pursue them, “For this month, I want to see my business bring in $100.” Then begins the process of ideation and motivation, inspiration will flow and creativity is optimized.

Fears of Failure

The immediate reason that prevents implementation of an inspiring, creative idea is the fear of failure and the enormity of bearing the logistics of losses. However, the essence of entrepreneurship is charting paths, treading the unexplored and giving in to fears inhibits the creative growth curve, stunting growth.

Self Confidence

Success brings self-confidence and drives greater success. Therefore, retaining self- confidence is the key to creativity in online marketing and keeping it successful.

Once, these inhibitions are avoided the path to successful online marketing is well established.

Sourced from: http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-for-online-marketing-failure-and-overcoming-them-2011-6?IR=T

The best way to manage multiple locations is to have team building activities. This will help the employees know they are part of a bigger team. The manager needs to be in direct contact with the branches and getting weekly reports.

It can seem overwhelming, sure. But with the right preparation, managerial skills and dedicated workforce to support you, you can keep your business running smoothly as it continues to flourish.

Let’s take a look at four strategies you can take to juggle multiple locations, tasks and people all at once.

1. Check in with locations.

You need to witness firsthand how your other locations are doing. When visiting those locations, you should be looking at how employees are interacting with your customers and one other, whether those employees are taking accurate inventory counts, how clean the stores are and whether or not they need renovations and repairs It’s not enough to send an assistant or a manager to do this job. As owner, you know what a successful store should look like.

2. Ask for weekly progress reports.

Let’s say you visit your stores and talk to employees. Everything may seem fine, but you have to know for sure. This is why weekly progress reports are critical.

3. Host a party or gathering.

Your employees can make or break your company. You want to make them feel appreciated and part of a group effort.

4. Hold quarterly training sessions.

A quarterly training session is where you’re able to talk about professional topics with your employees. You can bring in interesting guest speakers, like corporate comedians or other successful business owners, do team-building exercises and go over your goals for the quarter.

Sourced from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246174

Having different business locations, creates unforeseen issues whereby the employees might not arrive in good time at work and on the other hand productivity might reduce without direct supervision. This will require creation of new policies to control this

Managing Multiple Locations: Put Systems in Place

The old adage is that systems run businesses, and people run systems. “You must have systems in place to be able to standardize the quality of your communications, products and results,” says Bert Martinez, founder of Bert Martinez Communications, a business training and communications company with multiple locations. “Systems will allow you to duplicate offices and grow faster with reduce training times and supervision.”

Managing Multiple Locations: Adopt New Technology

With the advent of the Internet, and the prolific surge in the number of collaborative tools that have spawned from it, technology has become an integral part of the backbone for any far-flung organization, says Bloom, particularly because it can help your organization cut down on business travel expenses.

Managing Multiple Locations: Focus on Communication

Systems are a must, technology is important tool however, none of these will work with out real communication, says Martinez. “Communication is the key to collaboration with your offices, coworkers, and clients,” he says. If you neglect this aspect of running your business, you do so at your own risk, particularly in a business with multiple locations. That’s why Martinez also makes having his employees have time face-to-face a priority by having his offices take turns hosting each other once a year to enable communication between people on all levels.

Sourced from: https://www.inc.com/guides/managing-multiple-business-locations.html

Online marketing has become the center and front for the past decade. This is because online marketing is generally less expensive and more easily measured than offline marketing.

Most people prefer to use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote their products or services. Many consumers also turn to the Internet to check out the websites of the stores and brands that they like.

However, in spite of the popularity of online marketing, hiring the services of a printing company and doing marketing the traditional way are still much better. So, you shouldnt just go with the flow and follow what everyone else is doing.

You shouldnt be afraid to think outside the box and unleash your creativity through printed media. You should also realize that there are lots of offline marketing strategies that you can use to support and build your business brand.

Print publications are still of high value in marketing. You can increase the visibility of your brand as well as show your expertise when you obtain relevant placements in journals and magazines. Of course, you also have to make sure that you choose relevant publications for your target audience in your target industry.

Direct mail is also recommended, even though it tends to cost more than online marketing. Direct mailers continue to be highly effective lead generating tools. In fact, many people still prefer to receive direct mail. This is especially true for older consumers, who appreciate receiving personalized things.

Moreover, print publications and print advertisements are effective in attracting more prospective customers. You can publish articles or reviews about your products or services to discuss their features, advantages, qualities, etc. When you use print advertisements, you should position them in a highly targeted publication so that you can ensure that your target audience sees your ads.

These offline marketing strategies are tried and tested. Before the Internet was invented and online marketing tactics were employed, these offline marketing strategies had made companies and business owners successful. The times may change and marketing strategies may evolve, but there will always be people who will prefer traditional over contemporary. This is why you shouldnt shun offline marketing methods such as print media just yet.

A lot of people appreciate the personalized feel of direct mail. They like to read print newsletters and magazines. They like to feel the glossy pages as they turn them to read about the latest trends. Printed media can be carried around and read while waiting in queues or riding the train.

Theres no need to worry about not being able to read them when your gadgets battery dies, because they dont require gadgets. Furthermore, printed media do not hurt the eyes, since theyre not shown on computers that are overly bright.

What makes SEO services so essential that the majority of online services feel that it is essential that each business hire an agency one as part of their marketing technique? The significance of SEO services rely heavily on the fact that 90+% of online users
use search engines to discover the details that they need. SEO or search engine optimization is all about discovering ways to get your site seen by online users.

There are over three hundred and fifty million searches everyday with over 8 billion websites indexed that show on search engine results. More importantly, almost seventy five percent of all online transactions are initiated through an online search engine, in
which eighty seven percent of online visitors view those on the first page of the online search engine results. These figures will surely give you an idea of how important it is to be on page one of the searches.

Firms that offer search engine optimization share the objective of getting maximum exposure for their clients on the internet. These SEO companies assist websites with achieving higher rankings in search engine standings. When sites appear on page one or two of
major search engines, they are more likely to receive more visitors to their site. The purpose of SEO services is then to increase traffic to their clients website, period!

SEO services make it possible for a site to become preferred by such search engines as Google and Bing. The finest sites normally rank high in search engines due to the fact that they are liked both by individuals and search engine spiders. How the search engine
values and ultimately ranks your website is a sign of how many people are visiting it and interacting it.

SEO companies will have the ability to get you in front of your target audience making it among the most effective internet marketing strategies available today. People will discover you based upon the specific keywords relative to your business and products.

Once the keywords related to your products and services are ranked properly, potential customers will be led to your site. These services then have the power to sector your target audience and connect you with the perfect audience to attain the most opportunities
for converting sales. It differs from other marketing strategies which can result in garbage traffic and no sales.

The Need for SEO Services

Search engine optimization is unfortunately not so simple. It involves complex rules and guidelines in regard to getting your site onto the top page of online search engines which is much harder than most people realize.

It is for this reason that numerous businesses prefer to employ SEO services to do the dirty work for them. And, if you can find an agency that provides guaranteed SEO services with
a great track record than you should allow them to prove themselves to you.

When you take on a firm that does your SEO for you, your headaches tend to go away. If SEO services are supplied properly, SEO will be a very affordable method of getting more people to understand more about your company, service offerings and your products.