As of April 2010 we will no longer have printers in our offices. Everything will be digital! Seybold Scientific made a promise to ourselves and the community of Boise when we started that  we would model exceptional behavior as a citizen of this community. We will be one step closer to zero impact on our environment!

We at Seybold Scientific applaud the efforts of the Boise Tweet Up in coordinating this event to support the Women’s and Children’s Alliance – one of Idaho’s greatest organizations. Please plan to join us today and share this with your friends on Facebook.

Host: Boise TweetUp
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010
Time: 4:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: Moon’s Kitchen 712 W Idaho, Boise, Idaho 83702

Come meet your Facebook & Twitter friends in real life, Enjoy Soup from some of the Valley’s Best Chefs at this Fundraiser for the Women’s & Children’s Alliance.

Ten Chefs will have their soups for your enjoyment and you can vote on your favorite soup and bid on items donated for the benefit of Women’s and Children’ Alliance. A Donation of $5.00 is recommended.

Can’t make it but still want to donate? The Women & Children’s Alliance has a donations page online.

https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/WomensandChildrensAllianc/OnlineDonation.html

Participating Restaurants:

Asiago’s
1002 Main Street, Boise, ID

http://new.asiagos.com/

http://twitter.com/Asiagos

Bardenay
610 Grove Street, Boise, ID
155 E. Riverside Drive, Eagle, ID

http://new.bardenay.com/

http://twitter.com/Bardenay

The Blue Moose Cafe
79 E. Aikens, Eagle, ID

http://new.thebluemoosecafe.net

http://twitter.com/bluemooseidaho

Brick Oven Bistro
801 Main St., Boise, ID

http://new.brickovenbistro.com

http://twitter.com/brickovenbistro

Chef Roland’s Cajun Cuisine
1221 East Boise Avenue Boise, ID

Bar Gernika
202 S. Capitol Blvd., Boise, ID

http://new.bargernika.com

http://twitter.com/Gernika

Cafe de Paris
204 N. Capitol Blvd., Boise, ID

http://new.LeCafeDeParis.com

http://twitter.com/LeCafeDeParis

Life’s Kitchen
1025 South Capitol Blvd, Boise, ID

http://new.LifesKitchen.org

http://twitter.com/LifesKitchen

Moon’s Kitchen Cafe
712 W Idaho, Boise, ID

http://new.moonskitchen.com

http://twitter.com/MoonsKitchen

Owyhee Plaza Hotel
1109 W Main St, Boise, ID

http://new.owyheeplaza.com

http://twitter.com/owyheeplaza

Season’s Bistro
1117 E Winding Creek Rd., Suite 150, Eagle, ID

http://seasonsdelicatering.com

Look forward to seeing you!

SPONSORS:

Behind The Menu – Celebrating the Boise Valley culinary scene…from pitchfork to plate!

http://new.BehindTheMenu.com

FaceBook: http://bit.ly/zmUIp

http://twitter.com/Behind_The_Menu

Kevin Wilson, Accurate Imprints

http://new.accurateimprints.com

FaceBook: http://bit.ly/4oX3O

http://new.twitter.com/KevinWBoise

Mike Boss, Behind The Menu
new.BehindTheMenu.com
FaceBook: http://bit.ly/3SI8pn

http://twitter.com/MikeBoss

Scott Nicholson, Boise Valley Commercial Real Estate

http://new.BVCRE.com

FaceBook: http://bit.ly/Rg9zW

http://new.twitter.com/Scott_Nicholson

Sysco – Idaho

http://new.syscoidaho.com

Tates Tents & Events

http://new.tatespartyrents.com

FaceBook: http://bit.ly/9olckI

Boise TweetUp
Facebook: http://bit.ly/UDxsX
Twitter: http://new.twitter.com/Boise_TweetUp

Women’s and Children’s Alliance
720 West Washington Street, Boise, ID

http://new.wcaboise.org

Facebook: http://bit.ly/a1Sk0V
Twitter: http://new.twitter.com/WCA_Boise

Want an Apple iPad?

In our excitement of the new iPad launch and in appreciate to our clients, Seybold Scientific will be hosting a drawing for both new and existing customers.

Raffle ticket(s) will be provided to all customers who buy any service from now through the end of February 2010.  For each service purchased you will get an additional ticket.

For example, if you buy a website with SEO services that is two tickets; and for current clients, if you upgrade your initial SEO or request consulting that’s also two tickets.

Each ticket will have equal weight and will be entered into the pool.  Due to high customer volume for every 50 raffle tickets given away we will hold an additional drawing for another iPad.

Social Media Packages starting at $300 and websites starting at $599.

Refer someone to us and when they buy and mention you, you get a ticket as well!

Contact George @ (208) 639-0781 or george@seyboldinc.com

* for a limited time.

Till now, Google dominates more than 70% of the global search market. However, when it comes to the SEO race, no one wants to be left behind. So, here are some tips that will help you SEO for Bing.

Domain Age: Bing is a lot harsher about domain age than Google. The longer your domain has been registered, the more favor it will find with Bing. One may consider acquiring older domains to enhance the chances of being picked up by Bing.

Length of Text: For Bing, size does matter. So, ensure that your webpages have content of at least 300 words. The length of the text is more of a significant factor for Bing than it is for Google.

Link Out: Google alters your page rank based on the relevance of the link out webpages. Often, people are unsure of how a particular link out would impact their webpage and steer clear of this option. However, Bing likes link outs and increases the page ranking of those webpages that have more of them.

Title Tag of your Page: The title tag is of utmost importance for Bing. Without the relevant keyword in this area, your complete SEO efforts could be wasted.

Title Tags of Other Pages: When you link out from your page, ensure that the title tags of the pages you have linked out to have the keyword that is most relevant to your page. Bing simply loves this.

Link Popularity: Google is more fascinated with link popularity than Bing.

2009 marked the first year that car dealers and manufacturers started making the full “shift” to online marketing as their primary form of advertising and driving leads and sales. Many increased their percentage of their marketing budget to be used online. For some, this was a result of dropping their overall budget. For others, they started spending more and more online, less and less offline.

Regardless, that trend will continue in 2010.

Here are some of the things that we predict will have an impact on dealers and manufacturers in 2010.

Social Media Will Grow in Use and Importance

This alone can be its own blog post, but one thing is clear. Customers are going social and those in the automotive industry will have to as well. The challenge is in finding the right formula that works for particular dealers, their customers, and their area. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution in social media. So hire a qualified company with a team of experts to guide you.

More GOOD Sites are Better

2009 had a lot of dealers buying domains and throwing up sites left and right. Some would use redirects in an attempt to drive more traffic to their primary websites. Others would use microsites and landing pages to generate more leads. In 2010, the “domain bubble” (which burst a long time ago) will become more clearly useless as a strategy. Putting up high-quality, lead-generating pages and websites will be the key. Having multiple-domain primary websites (such as the Power of 5) will prove to be exceptionally useful as well.

Online Reputation Management will be a Key

As more people look to user-reviews as a portion of their decision-making process, “defending home base” will be of utmost importance. In the automotive industry, “home base” is your name. When people search for you by name, are they finding properties controlled by you and only you, or are they seeing review sites, 3rd party sites, and competitors?

Pay Per Click Marketing will be “Exposed”

For years, pay-per-click marketing on search engines has been used by many as their primary method of driving traffic to their websites. While PPC has a place in an automotive digital marketing campaign, it should never be the primary focus. There are certain aspects of it that will be exposed more readily in 2010, such as the fact that buying your name in Google is a practice designed to inflate the numbers and apparent effectiveness of a campaign. From a dealer’s perspective, it’s a waste of money. Again, a whole post should be dedicated to this.

Mobile is Here, but be Careful…

Sites that are able to be viewed flawlessly on mobile devices such as iPhones and Blackberries are rising in importance. More people are surfing from their mobile phone than ever before. With that said, there will be a “hype” level that is attributed to them that may sway decisions unnaturally. Going mobile is important and we are happy to have an excellent mobile product for our customers, but that doesn’t mean we believe it will be of utmost importance in 2010. It’s a luxury, but for the right price, it’s worth it.

We listed off the first 5 of 10 Things to Expect from Automotive Marketing in 2010. Here’s the rest of the list, and as you can see, the theme remains the same: 2010 will be a digital year for automotive marketing.

Regardless of what your current strategy is, you should be looking into the latest and greatest, but only through cautious eyes. There are many “shiny gadgets” out there that in reality will not help you to improve your business. Others will, but at too high of a cost. Our goal is to make sure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck with every marketing decision you make with us. Here are the last 5 things to consider going into the new year:

Content Rich = Traffic

Having sites with lots of quality, unique content has always been important, but as more competing websites put more content on their sites, it will be increasingly imperative to have content and pages add “on the fly”. Long-tail searches are becoming more relevant, and while they’re still not as important as having the “money terms” that drive the bulk traffic, finding the low-hanging fruit of someone deep in the buying funnel will make adding more content a must in 2010.

Tracking Makes Perfect

There’s no time for practice. You need to make your marketing decisions quickly and be able to enhance your presence at will. Tracking traffic, leads, and telephone calls with extreme accuracy will help you have a flexible game-plan going forward. The days of “they viewed your map and hours so that’s a lead” are over. If you can’t track it, it doesn’t exist. Google analytics and other 3rd-party tools will make the difference.

Lead Conversion Optimization Turns Traffic into Leads

Behavioral targeting is not new, but it’s relatively new in the automotive industry. Having website components that “adjust” to the search terms and traffic sources of your visitors will make their goals easier to achieve. In car sales, your customers’ goals are the same as yours – they want to find what their looking for quickly so they can make a buying decision and you want them to do the same thing.

Conformity Will be a Battle

As OEM’s move towards universal vendors and attempt to keep every dealer within their own little box, successful dealers will take advantage of the tools available to them to get the advantage. While there’s nothing wrong with a unified message, look, feel, and overall marketing strategy, having the ability to rank well for competitors’ cities while still having compliant websites will be the difference between a few sales a month. In today’s volatile market, every extra sale is worth going after.

SEO is Still the Key

Many things will make 2010 completely different from 2009, but one thing will stay the same throughout and beyond. Search engine optimization is still the key to being able to get every local sale you can as well as to branch out into other markets. While PPC, Social Media, and all of the other types of marketing are emerging, SEO will still be the most important thing to consider. You can’t get leads without traffic, and the organic search listings are the primary point that people use when deciding who to visit.

* * *

2010 will be a “bounce back year” for many dealers. Some, unfortunately, will not see enough of a bounce back to save them from their fate, but those who survive and flourish will be rewarded with even more in the coming months and years. People need cars. They will until something replaces them as the primary method of transportation. Until that day comes, keep diligent, market well, and be willing to take chances. It’s what’s kept you going strong for years and you shouldn’t have any intentions of changing that.

Twitter lists, should they be public or private and why do you think so? Please comment below.

George has five tips on how to streamline your email marketing to make the most of the Christmas retail season…

Get the calendar out:

“The timing of your holiday campaign is crucial. Think about days that might be ‘off days’ for your recipients and schedule your mailing around them.”

“Consider also that during the holiday season, workers might take more half days. Do you think it would be best if your mailing was delivered first thing in the morning? Think strategically.”

Focus:

“Everyone is busy this time of year. Make your campaign easy to remember by focusing on one offer over a longer period rather than on multiple offers over shorter periods. One generous promotion will be remembered better amongst the multitude of competing offers sitting next to it in the inbox.”

Be compatible:

“There are more and more email clients and hosts out there. Your email looks different across many of them. If you haven’t already, open email accounts with as many different providers as possible so that you can test your message on Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook Express, MSN and others.”

“Also consider how your HTML will render in Firefox and IE. Do what you can to ensure that the quality of your message holds firm across multiple platforms. Sometimes, simplicity does wonders.”

“MailChimp.com is a great service that does all of the compatibility for you and provides a limited number of sends each month for free – take advantage of their generosity and great service.”

Clear for landing:

“Don’t forget the ultimate goal of your campaign – conversions. How awful would it be if your holiday email campaign was successful at bringing customers to your site but failed to convert any of that traffic to sales?”

“Make your call-to-action clear and easy to take on your landing pages. Ensure that your shopping cart is working properly and trimmed down to expedite action.”

Be considerate:

“Increasing the frequency of your mailings during the holiday season might irritate some of your recipients who are accustomed to a regularly paced delivery cycle. ”

“They might even think that it’s the start of a more aggressive strategy and request to opt-out. If you are going to increase the frequency of your mailing during the holidays, let your recipients know in advance, and specify what they can expect to receive from you during the period.”

That’s it, but please please please ask questions if you have them and remember Seybold Scientific for all of your online marketing needs.

Contact us here >

We all know that SMS is an opt in strategy – that you have to convince consumers to choose to receive messages
from you. There are three basic enticement techniques that work well:

1) Offer a Big Prize to One Winner

By offering something that is a big prize to one winner you can garner a lot of excitement and get people opting in to win the prize.

Be sure the prize is congruent with your long term offer. Don’t offer the chance to win free ice cream for a year if you want to send them weekly specials about shoes.

Also, know that your list may be most interested in winning the prize and not as interested in your regular contact. Be sure they are aware they are also signing up to get regular communication when they enter the contest or your list building efforts will fail.

2) Give Something to Everyone

Giving something to each person who signs up for your SMS campaign is an excellent incentive to get people who are truly interested in what you offer on your list. As an example, if you are a restaurant and give away a free lunch entrée to everyone, you can be sure these are people who want to eat at your restaurant.

The price of the free initial item is sure to be recuperated quickly in repeat business and you will have built up good will with your customers.

3) Capturing Customers When they Purchase

When is it that customers are probably the most happy with your business? When they are purchasing something. So putting your SMS offer at the point of purchase – either on a counter display or on the receipt or by verbal delivery from the customer service person – is smart marketing.

As the method of enticement you can use a discount on a future purchase or quite possibly offering alerts when discounts are available. These are your customers already, you don’t have to convince them to do business with you, just to receive regular communication from you.

Bottom line, you need to give people a REASON to want to sign up for your SMS campaign. You are, after all, asking them to give you one of their most prized pieces of information – their cell phone number. Make it a good, compelling and interesting reason and your campaigns will do much better.

“There is no better way to create, test, and modify Twitter-based marketing than ObjectiveMarketer. If you’re going to take heat for using Twitter as tool, you might as well do it well.” – Guy Kawasaki

http://objectivemarketer.com/

In the course of a day, someone cancels a meeting, someone misses a phone call, a project takes the back burner, you find yourself waiting for someone else. This time is the time most at risk to being wasted. It’s amazing what we do when the half hour seems free or extra. Instead of just throwing it away, here’s a list of things you could do instead that might improve your business relationships.

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