Google Maps is an easy marketing tool.

Posted August 7th, 2010 in Google Stuff by pherr

Years ago there was an ad for the phone book that said “Let your
fingers do the walking”. It was great advice back then and in
retrospect it was a little prophetic. Back in the day we had to at
least get up and walk to wherever we stored the phone book. Nowadays we don’t even do that. We let our fingers do the walking across the keyboard. I joke frequently with my son about having all of the information in the world at my fingertips. It really isn’t a joke.

What does that mean for business owners? It means that they have to recognize that they need to have a presence for their business on the internet. There’s good news though, even for those netphobic business owners. You can utilize the power of the internet even without having a full blown webpage of your own. Google offers a power application called Google Maps for free. If you’ve ever searched the internet for a type of business, on Google the first things you see are the businesses that paid to be at the top of the page. The second thing you see is a map with little lettered tabs on it. Such is the application called Google Maps.

A couple of things about Google Maps – first it’s free. Secondly,
it’s pretty easy. Every business has a profile that includes enough
information that it is a website of its own. You can add contact
information – including your actual website address, categories that
your business fits into, hours of operation, additional details,
photos, coupons and there is even a place for customer reviews. You can make regular updates to your Google Maps page or you can use it to drive traffic to your actual webpage where you can really showcase your brand. Finally, did I mention that it’s free?

At MarketWNY we’ve put together a package to help you maximize your benefit from Google Maps. For only $49 we’ll set up your Google Maps page quickly and correctly. We’ll do what we’re great at so that you can spend your time doing what it is that you’re great at, taking care of your customers. Your time is valuable and we’re here to help.

Buffalo Businesses and Twitter: The Timing of a Tweet

Posted May 12th, 2010 in Buffalo Social Media Marketing, Twitter by Anthony

Do you tweet?  If you don’t should you?  The answers are not quite yes and no, but Twitter can be a very effective tool for distributing news, offers and directly communicating to your customers and potential customers.  In Buffalo it can be especially effective with such a tight-knit community, but it all comes down to one thing… 

Timing.

With so many things timing is everything.  If you have the right tweet at the right time you can effectively market to your consumers.  For instance a daily lunch special tweeted at 11:30 would be very valuable.  So many people use Twitter from their phone and check it when there’s down time, such as just before or on their way to lunch.  Tweet too early (say 10:30) and your tweet maybe pushed too far down into the users feed and missed.

Buffalo Harbor Kayak Twitter

Buffalo Harbor Kayak Twitter

A great local example is Buffalo Harbor Kayak.  As a warm weather seasonal business they have to take advantage of different avenues of advertising and this is perfect.  They tend to tweet the weather forecast so you can make plans to come kayak down in the harbor, open dates and even the occasional quip pertaining to Buffalo.

For a simple tool there’s so many uses for businesses, but in all instances timing is key.

MarketWNY.com Launches

Posted May 11th, 2010 in General by Anthony

We’re excited to announce the launch of MarketWNY.com!