Ulistic Opinion

30-60-30 Principle For Social Media Success – video

David West — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:58:01 +0000

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David A. West, Senior Advisor & Partner

Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner Stuart and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to us directly at 403.775.2205 or email info@ulistic.com.

Six Steps To Create A Website That Fills Your Pipeline

Stuart Crawford — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:47:37 +0000

What does your website say to your ideal prospect?
Is your marketing website attracting and converting visitors to prospects?

Your business website is one of the first pieces of your marketing a potential client will use to judge your business. Does it create a WOW factor? Next to your business card, your website is a critical part in your overall marketing message. What is it saying?

Does your website convey professionalism or could a potential client jump to a conclusion that your business can not handle their needs simply because of your website? We all strive for professional however for many our websites don’t share this message with those who visit.

After poor design, confusion is another challenge facing business websites today. Websites that struggle to share your exact message about your business will fail to convert visitors to your site into a sales prospect. If your message is unclear you will have confused visitors about what your business offers and especially how you can help them.

You only have 3 seconds to make that critical first impression, make the most of it.

Your marketing website is one of the most important parts of your overall marketing strategy online and your traditional marketing strategies. All roads lead home and your business website must welcome visitors and it must convert visitors to prospects.

Here are SIX basic tips to enable business to get the most from your marketing website:

1. Make your team the stars! Dump the stock photography and get real pictures from your team put on your site. This tells your visitors that you are a real company with real people. A professional photographer can capture the culture of your business allowing your business to share your culture through your website. It is great when we show up at a new client meeting and someone says “Hey, it is the guys from their website”.

2. Keep your content fresh. Having fresh content on your website demonstrates to your prospect how much you care about your business and that you are up on the times. Nothing says “I don’t care” or “I am too busy” like a stale blog or website that still has updates listed for Windows 95.

3. Content, Content, Content. Content is king in having a website that attracts visitors through search and has the potential to convert visitors to potential clients. Balancing exceptional content with good design will attract and potentially convert those who are just snooping to those who may invest in your services. David West, Senior Advisor at Ulistic says “it is the information highway, not the good-looking website highway”. People go online to get information, become a source of information for them.

4. Template Web Designs. There are some great web designs out there and some wonderful services that offer business a fixed-cost monthly for their websites, newsletters and other services. Consult with a web marketing professional before signing a long-term contract with any website designer or service provider.

5. No Secret Sauce. Marketing takes work and online marketing takes even more work. I haven’t found one silver bullet other than commitment, hard work and execution. You will never get this from a marketing application claiming to grow your business with no work from you. It takes knowledge and systems to make all levels of your marketing work.

6. Video. Use video and use video wisely. Video can grab each visitor’s attention immediately. Using client testimonials, walk-on video or talking head video will create connections with all your website visitors. Video will also become part of your search engine optimization strategy.

There are many things your business must consider when executing a web marketing strategy. Your main marketing website is the most important part to your overall marketing strategy, long before figuring out blogs, social media and other strategies. Focus efforts on creating a website that educates, informs and the most important factor – converts.

Your website must convert visitors to prospects, do the right things today in order to make the most of your marketing investment.

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Managed Services Providers (MSP), IT VARs, Resellers and other technology firms throughout Canada and the United States. Our goal is to serve and assist your business and enable you to do great things with your online marketing. We strip away the confusion and complexities with online marketing.

We help your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Is Your Calgary Search Engine Optimization Plan Based on Bad Assumptions?

David West — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:27:45 +0000

{Transcript}

Search engine optimization is kind of an interesting field sometimes. Although it started out with some pretty simple principles — like the right way is to title your pages, the importance of gathering some inbound links, and even working with those pesky meta- tags everyone got to be so familiar with — a large SEO project today resembles something like a space shuttle launch, complete with spreadsheets, timetables, and endless reports and graphs.

But for all the so-called science behind searches, there’s still a lot of room for hard work and common sense. In fact, if there’s one mistake we see over and over, it isn’t a lack of knowledge or technical ability… it’s starting with the wrong assumptions.

Let me explain: most of us would agree that getting to one of the top spots on Google would be a great thing. It might take more than a year and a (hefty financial investment) to accomplish, but who wouldn’t love to have hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of potential customers swinging by your homepage every day?

For any of that to be profitable, though, you have to begin with the right keywords and phrases in mind — not necessarily the ones that are going to bring you the most traffic, but the ones that will lead to the greatest number of sales.

A surprising number of businesses and marketers never make that strategic leap. They always assume that more traffic is going to equal higher revenue, when a better, less competitive keyword sits unnoticed. That’s a pretty big tactical mistake, based on a poor assumption, and one that is surprisingly easy to make. So, as you begin refine your next SEO campaign, stop and ask yourself: are we doing a lot of work to achieve the wrong thing?

If your Calgary search engine optimization campaign could benefit from some stronger focus, or execution, contact us at Ulistic, of Calgary, Alberta today. We’ve got the skills and experience to help you reach the top spots on all the major search engines.

Frequency + Visibility = Credibility [Video]

David West — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:04:21 +0000

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David A. West, Senior Advisor & Partner

My business partner Stuart and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to us directly at 403.775.2205 or email info@ulistic.com.

Ulistic makes a difference with MSP Marketing

Stuart Crawford — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:36:08 +0000

Every year the great team over at Nine Lives Media issue their Top 250 influential people in the Information Technology Managed Services Provider community.

This year, Ulistic’s Stuart Crawford has cracked the list along many of the top technology folks in the world.

View the official press release at MSP Marketing and Calgary Social Media Consultants Cracks MSP Mentor 250.

Service is where it our entire team at Ulistic want to have an impact with those who entrust us to guide, mentor and help them with social media marketing, search engine optimization and all the added services we offer. Ulistic is still a farily new company and starting to mature in the Calgary online marketing and Canadian Internet Marketing communities.

One of our practice areas where we have a depth of knowledge and working experience is in the IT Managed Services community. This experience allows the team at Ulistic to work close with MSPs globally and right here in our own backyard go to market effectively and get results. Visit our new blog committed to MSP Marketing.

Thanks to Joe, Amy and the entire crew at Nine Lives Media for this honour. Check out the MSP Mentor blog today.

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Four Things Every YouTube Marketing Video Needs

David West — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:35:33 +0000

Contrary to what you might have seen your colleagues and competitors trying to do, shooting five minutes of handy cam footage and posting it online is not an effective YouTube marketing strategy. That’s because the real value isn’t in the video itself, but what it persuades people to do. And as you might have guessed, a few shots of you droning on about your high school reunion isn’t exactly going to bring a flood of new customers through door.

To succeed with YouTube you’re going to have to be a little smarter than that. Here are four things you definitely have to have for every video you upload.

A good title. Marketing on YouTube is a little bit like search engine optimization, and that you really have to have titles and headings that not only entice people to look, but also contain important keywords. Notice, however, that we said you need a good title, not necessarily a clever one. Using titles like “how to,” and “five quick tips for…” might not be flashy, but it will be effective.

Scripts and editing. We suppose these are actually two things if you are going to be technical about it, but the point we’re getting at is that your video needs to have a professional edge. That’s not to say it has to be broadcast-quality to be effective, but it shouldn’t remind people of home videos of children’s birthday parties.

A call to action. What is it you want people to do after viewing your marketing video? Whatever the answer is, it’s probably a good idea to ask them to do it. A lot of marketers just assume people will know where to collect, what to buy, what other action to take if they’re interested, but save them a step and make things as clear as possible.

Be Valuable. What I mean by that is, add value to the user experience. Either be entertaining, as so many of the most watched YouTube videos are, or be educational. You have to write quality information into your script or your viewers will simply click to a better source for the real goods.

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David A. West, Senior Advisor & Partner

My business partner Stuart and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.

I invite you to reach out to us directly at 403.775.2205 or email info@ulistic.com.

Ulistic Webinar – Five Essential Small Business Online Applications

Stuart Crawford — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:36:59 +0000

Five Innovative and Essential Online Applications For Your Small Business
Join Ulistic for an in-depth review of the five critical online applications your small business can’t live without.

The Internet is reshaping the way small business uses technology and it is moving a lightning fast speed. Once just thought of as a tool for research and email, the Internet now allows business to collaborate across town and borders, exchanges thoughts and strategies, communicate with ease and drive awareness about their business.

Cut expensive IT costs and increase your profits.

During this 40 minute webinar, the team from Ulistic will share the top five web applications and how your small business can use these to increase efficiencies, maintain healthy cash flow and brainstorm.

Webinar Date: August 24, 2010
Webinar Time: 12 Noon Eastern/9 AM Pacific
Register online today at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/541161128

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Ulistic Webinar – Where the Roads Cross Between Social Media and Search Engine Optimization

Stuart Crawford — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:23:09 +0000

Join us for a no cost Calgary marketing business Webinar on August 17.

Ulistic, a leading Calgary search engine optimization, social media and online marketing firm invites you to take part in their upcoming webinar on August 17th at 11 AM Mountain Time.

This 40 minute session internet marketing webinar we cover the fine line between Social Media, Social Circles and the impact these user contributed websites have on search engine optimization.

David West, Senior Advisor and Partner at Calgary, Alberta based Ulsitic will discuss the state of social and search as it is today and theorize the future when social influences will potentially impact search results. Every business owner needs to have some understanding of social media and search engine and how social search results will influence your potential customers.

About David West

David began working with Internet technologies initially as a freelance website programmer. He later formed a full service website design and development company in Calgary, Alberta. David has employed Internet Marketers, Designers, Programmers and Project Managers to work together to create dynamic and effective websites. He firmly believes that quality traffic to a website is better than quantity and uses a “coaching” approach to collaborative development of an online strategy for all Ulistic business clients. David positions his clients for success online.

Title: Where the Roads Cross Between Social Media and Search Engine Optimization
Date: Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Time: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM MDT
Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/426743328

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Ulistic is next to the bar at CompTIA Breakaway #BKWY10

Stuart Crawford — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:15:17 +0000

Are you at the CompTIA Breakaway 2010 conference in San Antonio?

If your answer is yes then swing by booth 417 on the main trade show floor and check out what Ulistic is all about.

Visit our booth and you may just get lucky and get a fully licensed version of Microsoft Small Business Server 2008R2 for swinging over for a visit.

Also, Ulistic is right next to the bar…get a cocktail and swing over for a discussion about social media, search engine optimization and online marketing.

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.

Recap from CompTIA Breakaway Day 1 – San Antonio

Stuart Crawford — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 02:35:22 +0000

The 2010 edition of the CompTIA Breakaway conference is now underway and the luxurious JW Marriott Resort in San Antonio, TX is the site of this year’s event.

Leaders in the Computer Reseller, Managed Service Provider and Technology Professionals have travelled from across North America to attend this four-day event geared at bringing techies and business professionals together. CompTIA Breakaway focuses on aligning computer vendors and resellers with CompTIA’s programs and services.

Highlights from day one include:

MSP University – Day one of their three-day bootcamp that focuses on the business skills required to run a successful technology firm. Tracks include service delivery, sales, marketing and business leadership. MSP University focuses on serving the needs of managed services providers across the globe and their bootcamp series, designed to educate and develop skills across the IT community.
Peer to Peer Discussions – Many IT Resellers met for 75 minutes to share their vision of the future of the technology community. There is concern in the industry around the role the cloud will play with information systems and discussions on selecting key verticals with their businesses.
Marketing 101 – As part of the MSP University bootcamp Ulistic participated in a panel discussion about marketing in the IT community. Marketing is essential for the smallest of computer resellers and the larger firms. Many computer firms still struggle with the basics of marketing and MSP University along with their partners are helping many understand what it really takes.

“The movers and shakers in the IT industry are all here” states Neil Jones, President of Live Virtual Help Desk, a British Columbia based virtual help desk service. “we get interesting ideas that provoke thought and strategies around building our virtual help desk business”.

CompTIA Breakaway runs through to August 12.

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Stuart R. Crawford - MSP Marketing Specialist

I invite you to reach out to me personally at 403.775.2205 or email Stuart at scrawford@ulistic.com.