From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

Williamsburg/ Peninsula Internet Marketing Group

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 4:00 PM!

What: February IMG Session : Blogging for Business

When: Wednesday, February 3, 2010 4:00 PM

Who: 42 Yes / 1 Maybe

Where: Liz Moore & Associates Building in New Town, 5350 Discovery Park Blvd, Williamsburg VA 23188

Meetup Description
Keith Parnell, CEO of JASE Digital Media, CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com, and Co-Principal of New Media Conventions will be speaking at our next Meetup on Thursday Feb 3, 2010. Our Topic will be Blogging for Business - The How’s and Why’s.

Of the many topics we will cover, will be -

• Why you should blog.
• How and where to setup a new blog.
• How often to blog.
• When to blog - on a schedule?
• Who to blog to.
• Inbound marketing concepts.
• Lead generation.
• How to blog efficiently.
• How to tie your blog to other social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
• How to measure the results of blogging.
• How to encourage audience interaction on your blog.
• How to syndicate your blog.
• Is blogging all you need to do?

Please bring your laptops with you to enjoy the hands-on portion of the session.

About Keith Parnell
Keith is the Founder & CEO of JASE Digital Media, a marketing and new media agency based in Norfolk, VA.

Keith is Co-Founder & CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com, an Internet start-up that specializes in local business services, local small business advertising, and providing the most comprehensive local search directories across the United States.

Keith is also Co-Founder and Co-Principal of New Media Conventions.

Keith is a speaker, writer and blogger at keithparnell.com. He frequently performs interactive talks and how-to sessions for companies, non-profit organizations, conferences and seminars. He is a knowledgeable and passionate speaker on a variety of topics including new media, online marketing, social media, inbound marketing strategies, brand management solutions, and successful advertising techniques.

Technology, marketing and social media are among Keith’s daily passions. He has a vast presence and personal network in the social media world with c. 25,000 followers and subscribers from his blogs, Twitter, JASEzone, Facebook, LinkedIn and FriendFeed networks.

Keith is a member of the Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads, the Hampton Roads Internet Marketing & Technology Group, the Williamsburg / Peninsula Internet Marketing Group, and the Virginia Opera Guild. Keith video blogs at CoffeeWithTheCEO.com.

On Twitter? Follow Keith at @parnellk63.

Kim Tahey with Atlantic Bay Mortgage has graciously offered to provide refreshments for afterwards.

Please RSVP here. If this gets much large we may have to change venues.

Share this with others you know who might benefit. There are powers in numbers. Our hope is to develop this into a learning/ sharing experience ,where all can learn/ share and become proficient!

I get this question quite a bit. What is inbound marketing and why should I care?

Simply, inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. Remember the old days of setting up outbound call centers (telemarketing), creating television and radio commercials, and pushing out email blasts to get your word out? Well, that inefficient and expensive method of advertising and marketing is no longer a necessity.

Think smart website design and development.
Think online call-to-actions.
Think strategic blog content.
Think SEO (search engine optimization).
Think social media marketing.
Think audio and video marketing.
Think efficient online lead generation.

All of these strategies and methods are important pieces of the concept, inbound marketing.

What inbound marketing methods most interest you? What larger internet marketing methods do you already have in place?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Blame It On Me by Barenaked Ladies.

I will be speaking to the Williamsburg / Peninsula Internet Marketing Group in February on Blogging for Business - The How’s and Why’s. Thanks John for the invite.

Of the many topics we will cover, will be -

• Why you should blog.
• How and where to setup a new blog.
• How often to blog.
• When to blog - on a schedule?
• Who to blog to.
• Inbound marketing concepts.
• Lead generation.
• How to blog efficiently.
• How to tie your blog to other social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
• How to measure the results of blogging.
• How to encourage audience interaction on your blog.
• How to syndicate your blog.
• Is blogging all you need to do?

Keep an eye out here for more information and registration details.

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison.

A group of professionals is meeting on Tuesday morning at Aromas in City Center in Newport News. Stop by and join us.

There’s no agenda and no sales - just sharing of information about our businesses. We’ll share ideas, processes, social media initiatives, lead generation through Internet marketing, how to make inbound marketing work for your business, how to efficiently use the tools that are available to us, and many other topics.

Register for Tuesday’s meeting here. Bring your business cards to qualify for drawings for social media shirts and Coffee with the CEO stickers.

Coffee with the CEO is for you. Let’s do it!

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Katie Mae by Lightnin’ Hopkins.

A group of professionals is meeting on Tuesday at Panera Bread on 21st street in Norfolk. Stop by.

There’s no agenda and no sales -  just sharing of information about our businesses. We’ll share ideas, processes, social media initiatives, lead generation through Internet marketing, how to make inbound marketing work for your business, how to efficiently use the tools that are available to us, and many other topics.

Register for Tuesday’s meeting here.

Coffee with the CEO is for you. Let’s do it!

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to T-Bone Shuffle by Albert Collins.

photo credit: flickr.com/photos/madebygirl

I agree with Chris. Don’t take the holidays off from creating content for your blog.

Many companies do scale back on a lot of tasks during the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas-to-New Year holiday period. This is our opportunity to shine.

I equate this time period to the efforts we have preached about during this tough economic downturn in our country. While advertising dollars are scarce, be creative, come up with cool inbound marketing tactics to generate leads. Be smart and build your online marketing presence while your competitors are doing nothing.

What do you think? Have you increased your internet marketing activities? Have you increased your blogging?

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to Boys of Summer by Don Henley.

A couple of years ago our company, JASE Group, decided that we were going to commit wholeheartedly to inbound marketing. The marketing and advertising strategies we had previously used for our company just were not working as effectively as we hoped.

Our process began as a test project around our blog material and extended out to a few of the social communities we were actively involved in. We began creating a massive amount of content then instigated, created and encouraged as many links back to this content as possible.

Guess what? It worked. And it still works. Every day.

Here are a few ways our inbound marketing strategies have influenced our daily business life:

1. Lead generation from our company website and blog has easily tripled in the volume of quality leads. We have essentially hired an additional sales member (our website) without the payroll of an additional person.
2. With inbound marketing we apply less efforts to traditional time consuming advertising campaigns - no more phone book ads, no more (offline) television commercials, no more radio advertising, no more trade show exhibits.
3. Our internet marketing initiatives have made us more effective towards the goals of our sales team. The leads we generate from our online web entities are more qualified than previous offline initiatives’ leads.
4. We are more efficient. Period. Time spent is more directly attributable to results.
5. Our current online marketing initiatives are much less expensive than traditional campaigns. Couple this with the points made above, and we have a winner.
6. Since we spend much less time worrying every single detail of outbound marketing items such as media buys and almost-impossible-to-measure-ROI, we have more time to work on our clients’ initiatives.

Do you wonder how inbound marketing can work for your business? Our team would be glad to talk with you.

Basics of an Inbound Marketing Plan

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

On Twitter? Follow me at @parnellk63.

Listening to I’ll Stand By You by Bonnie Rait.

Yesterday Walt, our Creative Director, and I had the pleasure of visiting the shop of a local client. John Manus was gracious enough to show us around. Adver-tees has just signed with JASE to provide Internet Marketing consultation and to guide and assist with their inbound marketing initiatives.

Here are a few photos from our visit to the Adver-tees shop in Chesapeake. Adver-tees specializes in screen printing, embroidery and promotional items.

Adver-tees
www.bestdealonshirts.com
942 Canal Drive
Chesapeake, VA 23323
(757) 487-1424

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

I will be speaking on Wednesday (10/28/2009)  next week in Chesapeake (VA) for the team at Real Estate-XChange. Real Estate-XChange is an exciting company that is just beginning their ventures into the social media marketing world.

During the presentation, Social Media Business Strategies, we will discuss social media as part of an online marketing plan falling under the umbrella of a comprehensive marketing plan for the real estate industry, and our (JASE) experiences in using social media initiatives with our clients.

Other points of interest that will be covered are blogging for business, inbound marketing, internet marketing, lead generation, online marketing, search engine marketing and SEO.

2009 Oct 28: Social Media Business Strategies

Location:
The Real Estate-XChange
517 Baylor Court
Chesapeake, VA 23320

RSS and Facebook readers: click here to view and enter comments.

How is your online marketing campaign producing for you? Are your sales agents overworked yet?

I’ve heard any one of four discouraging answers many times over in the past few months.

1. My what? I guess don’t have one.
2. Yes, it is working great for us. But it doesn’t equal our traditional advertising efforts.
3. No, I must be doing something wrong.
4. I make new Facebook friends all the time but the sales dollars are not paying the bills.

The bottom line is, your online marketing campaign should be strategically aligned with sales goals, and thoughtfully planned and executed. Your online marketing campaign should have inbound marketing initiatives embedded that are measurable and proven. Your online marketing campaign should be producing overwhelming results feeding your sales team.

And probably even more critical than any other item in your planning, don’t rely on the advice of folks that just hang out on Facebook. Marketing is a skill. Online marketing is an even more specialized skill. Don’t leave the success of your business to just anyone.

Here’s a quick definition of Internet Marketing from the JASE website:

Internet marketing focuses on creating powerful content that will lead potential customers to your brand, product or service line through online methods like searching, referrals, and links from other web entities such as blogs, video and social communities.

If you are not investing in and actively participating in Internet Marketing, you are certainly missing an audience that is looking for you.

I talked a while back during the Coffee with the CEO series about aligning your business to attract Inbound Marketing traffic. See the video here. A quick overview of the video: social media fits into an inbound marketing campaign, inbound marketing fits into an internet marketing campaign, and internet marketing (along with traditional marketing) fits into an overall marketing plan.

Read that again if you didn’t understand. Internet Marketing can be, should be, and (if you talk to us) will be a vital aspect of solid sales leads generation for your sales staff.

Don’t miss out on Internet Marketing. Let’s talk.

Stay tuned for the excitement! New Media Conventions is coming to Virginia Beach this fall. Check the New Media Conventions website for more details. Make sure to sign up for the email list to get details as they are unveiled.

I had the great privilege of speaking at last week’s South Hampton Roads Museums Forum meeting.

We talked on social media, how social media fits into an inbound marketing campaign, how inbound marketing fits into an online marketing campaign, and how online marketing fits into an overall marketing plan.

Catch the video and slideshow of the seminar here: Social Media’s Role in the Marketing Plan.

Many thanks to Holly Carson at Keep Norfolk Beautiful for the invite.

Feel free to extract from, copy or talk about any slides in the slidedeck. Enjoy!