For folks like me (that have worked in proximity to the Toronto airport for most of my career), a once popular location has been revitalized. Pepi’s was a fast food joint on Derry Road just east of Torbram. It was right on the flight path and in its day was a very popular spot. Then the large McDonnell Douglas plant closed down, the major banks moved out of the area and the once well know eatery died a slow and painful death. It was vacant for many years and several entrepreneurs tried to bring it back without success.

A few months ago Zet’s, a 24 hour greasy spoon on the strip, took it over and breathed new life into the old location. A major facelift began including a freshly paved yard, new signage, new paint, a fresh interior…every detail was covered. They manned it with staff from the other restaurant and had 3 times as many people serving you, compared to previous renditions.

We went the other day for lunch. It was busy and although it had a limited menu and hours, compared to the airport road location, it was very professionally run, the food was well prepared and the menu fairly priced. The service was quick and friendly and everyone sported matching shirts with their updated brand prominently featured.

I think they did it right and will be a success. It’s well marketed and manned and I believe their attention to detail will make the difference in keeping their doors open and their business prospering. Time will tell.

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“Sometimes, the details that matter most, are paying attention to the details most will never even notice.” 

When things are going well, it’s easy to make the mistake of thinking you’re more or less invincible. I’ve come to realize all business walks a tightrope and even with a net, it’s tough to recover from a fall like most have gone through this past couple of years. For those of us big and small who survived, it’s been an education in humility.

Business by its nature is made up of peaks and valleys. You can never let up. The hard work and focus we’ve all applied during this past recessional valley needs to continue even when we find ourselves nearing the next peak. Like the song says, “keep your eye on the road and your hands upon the wheel.”

I believe the business world has shifted to a new path that none of us have gone down before.

A long standing supplier to our company closed its doors last week. We moved away from them 2 years ago after 10 years of being a loyal customer. Why? They didn’t listen or respond to some key concerns we had. Instead the owner bad mouthed his competition and dismissed our request as some kind of bluff. As it turns out, he was easily replaced by a better alternative. That being said, I was still truly sorry to see his business fail… it was an unnecessary tragedy.

Lee’s Quote for the Day

“Having your own business for twenty years is just like a marriage but without the sex…on second thought, having your own business is exactly like being married.”

So here is a young blues man who has studied the traditional greats like Little Walter, Muddy Walters, Big Joe Williams and so on. His main thing is playing harp (harmonica) and he is extremely good at it, way above average and most definitely at a professional level. Born in Japan, he hasn’t quite mastered the English language and you can clearly hear a thick accent in his voice. If he had started off singing, you might have dismissed him totally as a bad karaoke performer, for at first it’s almost comical to hear his rendition of the traditional blues classics that make up his repertoire. But…

..but he started off with his strongest talent first. He was very credible as a blues harp player so you gave him a little more rope before judging his vocal abilities. And guess what? Although an acquired taste, he was very sincere in his performance and within a few songs you couldn’t help but accept him. And after a set of his brand of blues, with an awesome back up band (another immediate source of credibility) and confident performance…he was an undeniable hit.

It was a bit of an epiphany for me and maybe a lesson for us all. If we lead with our strength, are prepared and confident… maybe clients will let us sing the occasional number that is a little out of tune, providing we continue to impress them with our core service talents.

Lee’s quote for the day

“It’s probably true that you never get a second chance at a first impression… so let’s hone our talent and lead with our strength so that by association, the odd sour notes that come later aren’t quite as noticeable!”

B2B companies are ahead of their B2C rivals when it comes to social media adoption

• 81% of B2B companies maintain company-related accounts or profiles on social media sites versus 67% of B2C
• 75% of B2Bers participate in microblogging (eg. Twitter) versus 49% of B2Cers

Source: Business.com – 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007404)

And the FTSE 100 are just plain running scared of Twitter

• Just 16 of the FTSE 100 companies are using Twitter, despite the fact that 20% of Tweets contain a reference to a product or brand

Source: Virgin Media Business (http://ow.ly/1gDTf)

But CIOs could well be the biggest blocker to social media adoption

• 54% of CIOs prohibit use of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, while at work

Source: Robert Half Technology (http://rht.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=131&item=790)

Use of social media by B2B companies is validated by B2B buyer perspectives

• 93% of business buyers believe all companies should have a presence in social media
• 85% believe companies should not just present information via social media, but use it to interact and become more engaged with them

Source: Cone Inc – Social Media in business (http://ow.ly/1dLqJ)

And that’s because the B2B buying process is fundamentally changing

• 9 out of 10 buyers say that when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you

Source: DemandGen Report

• Over 70% of purchases are restricted to established vendors or are heavily dependent on Word of Mouth recommendations

Source: Buyersphere ebook, Enquiro (http://ow.ly/YbQm)

• More than 8 out of 10 IT decision-makers said word of mouth recommendations are the most important source when making buying decisions

Source: Forrester Research, How to take B2B relationships from Indifferent to Engaged: Jan 2009

• 59% of B2B buyers engaged with peers who addressed their challenge, 48% followed industry conversations on the topic and 37% posted questions on social networking sites looking for suggestions

Source: Genius (http://www.genius.com/marketinggeniusblog/2767/a-glimpse-inside-the-mind-of-the-new-b2b-buyer.html)

Yet there are differing opinions as to where search comes into play in the buy cycle

• 7 out of 10 buyers say that they start their buying process at vendor sites, not Google

Source: DemandGen Report (http://ow.ly/1d82N)

Versus

• 93% of B2B buyers use search to begin the buying process

Source: Marketo (http://bit.ly/9O6pix)

If you think C-level executives aren’t active online, you’re sorely mistaken

• The Internet is the C-Suites top information resource (74% of C-Level executives say it’s very valuable)
• 53% of C-level executives said they prefer to locate information themselves
• The C-suite first turns to mainstream search engines (63%) to locate information
• 6 out of 10 C-Suite executives conduct more than six searches a day
• Executives in IT are the most prevalent users of the Internet for information gathering

Source: Forbes Insight – The Rise of the Digital C-Suite (http://www.forbes.com/forbesinsights/digital_csuite/index.html)

Client marketers are warming to the idea of social media, but many are still to act

• While 92% of client marketers agree that it would be unwise to ignore social media, 63% do not have a social media strategy

Source: The B2B Barometer (http://www.b2bbarometer.co.uk)

The relationship between Marketing and Sales in B2B organisations still remains fractious

• Sales generate 53% of their own leads and marketing contributes just 24%

Source: 2009 CSO Report (http://bit.ly/7EbaHS)

• 90% of marketing deliverables are not used by sales

Source: The New Rules of Sales Enablement (http://tiny.cc/jXRxX)

• 49% of B2B marketers confess to not measuring ROI

Source: The B2B Barometer (http://www.b2bbarometer.co.uk)

And if you still don’t get the whole social media thing, it’s worth bearing in mind…

• 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research and 96% turn to corporate websites
• 56% said social media was important or somewhat important for reporting and producing stories

* Note: We have used and abused the above information, as the author insisted. A special thanks for the folks at Earnest Agency.

In this week’s post, we’ll talk about creating a custom mobile site, and why you should look at creating one for your transportation business. During the past decade, mobile devices such as cell phones and smart phones have seen an exponential growth in usage, both by consumers and business users. A typical website does not view too well on the small screen of these mobile devices. Usually a user has to do some horizontal and vertical scrolling in order to get to the information they’re looking for.

This is where customized mobile websites come in. Think of a mobile site as a version of your own site without the bells and whistles. A typical mobile site will contain, at minimum, some basic information about your business such as the services that your company offers, a company profile page and basic contact information. Mobile sites should load quickly, as mobile devices do not have the required bandwidth that landline internet connections have. You can take your mobile site to the next level by integrating some interactive content. For example, if your website supports features such as shipment tracking, you can easily integrate that into your mobile site. This way the customer can quickly look up their shipment information through their mobile device. Another idea would be to have a simplified rate request form, with only basic contact details and shipment fields. The whole idea is to make things as simple as possible for the mobile user, because they’re on the go, and already limited by factors that they can’t control such as screen size and bandwidth limitations.

Most mobile sites will run in harmony with your existing site. If a user is using a mobile device, you can install code determining so they’ll be automatically redirected to your mobile site. You can also specify a sub-domain such as m.yourwebsite.com, a directory www.yoursite.com/mobile or go one step further with a .mobi domain to fully distinguish your regular website from your mobile one. For a good example of a mobile site serving the transportation industry, look to no further than UPS’ mobile site at m.ups.com.

For example, let’s say you have a potential customer in Ottawa, who sells computer equipment, and needs to ship out a skid load (Less than Truckload or LTL) of computer parts to Toronto. The web savvy customer will type in “LTL Ottawa Toronto” in the search engine, and a bunch of results related to LTL shipping throughout Ontario will show up. Will your company be among them? This is where SEO comes into play. Through the use of strategically placed keywords, well written original copy and other optimizations, your company can achieve a better search result on the web.

Here are some of our Top 10 tips for a successful website, both from a Marketing and a SEO perspective:

1. Strike the right balance between loading speed and visual impact of your home page.
2. Capture your visitors’ interest immediately.
3. Deliver a clear and direct message.
4. Ensure your navigation is easy to use, well organized, and draws on current techniques.
5. Enhance your message with complementary fonts, captions, and headlines.
6. Increase return visits by posting regular updates.
7. Make sure your logo and tagline are well crafted and consistent.
8. Provide immediate access to customer login, language selection, and other popular features.
9. Utilize SEO.
   - Use proper keywords and descriptions on each page.
   - Make navigation elements easily recognized by search engines.
   - Optimize headings and alternate text for images.
   - Ensure your URLs are search engine friendly and anchor texts are descriptive.
10. Gain insight on your web traffic with Google Analytics (or equivalent).
    - Visits – Monitor the number of repeat and new visitors to your website.
    - Bounce Rate – Know how many visitors leave immediately after the first page is viewed.
    - Time – See the average time visitors spend on your website.
    - Traffic – Learn where your top 25 sources of visitors are coming from.
    - Keywords – Recognize the top 25 words searched on Google to get to your website.

Because of the large amount of websites that exist on the Internet, in the past few years many SEO Marketing companies have popped up on the web. A lot of them will claim that they can offer a number one ranking for your website in Google or other search engines. According to Google, this is simply not the case. You cannot buy your way into getting a better search result on Google, but you can however optimize your site so that it has a better chance of showing up near the top of your search results. You can pay to run advertisements on Google through a program called AdWords, but we’ll explore that in a future SEO article.

We’re in the business of creating websites and marketing campaigns that communicate your unique story. Contact us, so that your CEO will get SEO, and that your CFO can LOL.