Cutting Edge Local Marketing

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Welcome to the The Local Marketers magazine that is going to get straight to the point about local Marketing for your business.

Who are We?

We are The Local Marketers Association; we help local business owners reach their maximum growth potential by ensuring their four essential marketing pillars are in place and functioning properly.

Most of us had our first exposure to local business marketing as business owners and entrepreneurs ourselves.

Because we work with small and medium businesses every day, our Association members have been able to identify a pattern or formula that consistently predicts how successful a business will be depending on how many elements of the formula are being optimized. Because these elements support the business, we call them Pillars and there are four of them. We saw that businesses that optimized all four pillars succeeded (sometimes against all odds!) and businesses that didn't were doomed to fail. The results were so consistent; it was almost like having a crystal ball.

Out of that discovery came the Four Pillars Marketing System we use today.

It has become our mission to share this with local business owners around the world.

Your TLMA Newsletter Magazine

ContentsPg. 2

Contents

P2. Introduction

P3. 5 Reasons Mobile Site

P4. 5 Reasons (Con’t)

P5. 5 Essential Elements

P6. 5 Essential Elements

(Con’t)

P7. Pres. Lori Snyder Bio

P8. VP Tracy A. Hanes Bio

P9. VP Business

Development

Suzanne McIntosh Bio

TLMA Vice President

Newsletter Editor

Tracy A. Hanes

Tlmaonline.org

tracyahanes@gmail.com

281-910-8728

Presented By The Local Marketers AssociationPg. 3

If you are responsible for marketing your business, then there’s no doubt you are aware of just how

important it is that you have a strong presence on the Internet.

There are many ways of developing this presence, from social media sites to blogs, and you should be taking advantage of all of them.

One of the latest, most effective ways of taking full advantage of the world wide web’s marketing potential is by using a mobile website.

A mobile website is just what it sounds like – a website specifically designed to be viewed on mobile devices.

So, why does your business need a mobile website if its traditional site is doing just fine?

Here are five compelling reasons why:

Aesthetic appeal.

You may wonder why people can’t just view your existing traditional website on their mobile devices.

The truth is, they can. The other truth is that your traditional website simply doesn’t look very good on a mobile device.

Do this: shrink the view on your web browser by zooming out until

you have to squint to read the text.

Not a good viewing experience, right?

The statistics. You can’t argue with numbers.

Basically, more people today use their mobile devices to access the Internet than they do their desktop or laptop computers.

As a matter of fact, many people accessing the web today ONLY do so through their mobile devices.

Can you afford not to cater to this considerably large market sector?

5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Mobile Site

Data transfer costs. Many mobile users must pay data transfer fees.

Traditional websites have much more data than mobile websites, and therefore can cost a lot of people a lot of money to view.

How often are customers willing to pay you to market to them? Enough said.

Navigation.

As previously mentioned, traditional sites are much smaller on those tiny mobile device screens.

That means site visitors must do an awful lot of scrolling to take the whole site in . . .

and let’s face it, web surfers don’t want to have to work to read a web page.

Also, it can be nearly impossible to hit navigation buttons on such a tiny screen when the website hasn’t been optimized for mobile devices.

Today’s web audience.

The fact that most people access the Internet via mobile device also means that most people use their mobile devices for any of a

wide variety of things – shopping, searching, entertainment, and more – and these are all aspects you could add to your mobile website to increase

your reach and broaden your customer base.

As you can see, there are a number of very good reasons to build a mobile website for your business, and as soon as possible.

5 Reasons Continued.

5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Mobile SitePg. 4

So you did your research and you understand the importance of building a mobile website. That’s great.

You are truly ahead ofthe game when it comes to the world of Internet marketing.

Now you need to knowhow to build the most effective mobile website possible . . . and, no, it is not nearly the same as building a traditional site.

A mobile website is a new brand of site, and it involves a unique set of considerations.

Here are five essential elements for your mobile website:

Content. If you are at all experienced in web design, then you’ve most likely heard the phrase, “content is king.”

Mobile web design relegates content to a new level, underneath navigability.

Sure, it is still important that your content is accurate, relevant, informative, and easy to understand.

However, the most important thing is that your content is short, concise, and free of any unnecessary verbiage.

A good rule of thumb is that it should all fit on one page (and on a tiny mobile device screen, at that).

Graphics and navigation buttons.

Keep the touch screen in mind when designing a mobile website.

Any good mobile site should have thumb-friendly navigation buttons.

Additionally, other graphics should be kept to a minimum.

Single column layout.

You don’t want your site visitors to have to work to view your page.

It should not be necessary to zoom or scroll to fit your site’s content on the screen.

The most effective way to display your mobile website is in a single column, which will be compatible with most smart phone screens.

5 Essential Elements for Your Mobile Site

We can build your Mobile WebsitePg. 5

Put Your

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Use the mobile device’s inbuilt functionality.

This refers to all of those things a mobile device can do that a desktop or laptop can’t do –phone calls and GPS, for example.

To aid the user experience, provide a way to access these features so that your site visitors can call or locate your business with just the touch of a button.

Navigation layout.

In addition to having simple, large-scale navigation buttons and search boxes,

you should also arrange your site’s navigation tools in a way that integrates well into the column format.

You may opt to stack them, put them in a drop-down menu at the top or bottom of the page, or present them as the home page.As you can see, mobile web design is a whole new ballgame.

It is important to keep all of these factors in mind if you are to build an effective mobile website.

Essential Elements of a Mobile Site Cont.

5 Essential Elements for Your Mobile SitePg. 6

President, The Local Marketers AssociationPg. 7

Lori Snyder, President, The Local Marketers Association

Lorinda Snyder started her career as an entrepreneur in 1997 with a small gift business. She quickly learned how to integrate local and online marketing to attract customers from around the world to her business. Soon other business owners were asking her to teach them the strategies she had developed. She learned that she loved teaching the business of running a business and a career was born.

Soon after that, her talent for writing clear and educational business books was recognized and she added ghost writing to her list of services offered. After almost two decades of working with local entrepreneurs, Lori maintains her passion for local and home-based businesses and has helped nurture hundreds of new businesses during her twenty-plus years as a consultant, educator, and writer.

She has created curricula for entrepreneurship classes at the high school level. 0ne of her newest projects involves helping communities create economic stability by teaching and supporting entrepreneurism and micro industry, a concept she calls “Trickle-Up Economics”.

She is also Founder and President of The Local Marketers Association, one of the first industry associations for professional on and offline marketing consultants. The Association has expanded quickly and is serving marketing consultants and their clients world-wide.

Lori has been honored every year since 2009 by inclusion in the Cambridge Who’s Who Registry of Executives, Professionals and Entrepreneurs for her work with small and micro business owners. When she isn’t visiting her children and grandchildren, she’s working from her laptop on her favorite beach in Costa Rica or exploring her new hometown of Salt Lake City Utah.

VP, The Local Marketers Association Pg. 7

Tracy A. Hanes, Vice President, The Local Marketers Association

Author, Speaker, Consultant, and online/offline marketing Pro Tracy A. Hanes , educator and advocate for the success of his clients and customers. Is a leading authority at helping small businesses gain a dominant position in their local marketplace using cutting edge systems.

Tracy specializes in helping entrepreneurs and small businesses gain a competitive advantage in their local market both online and off.

He makes sure that these businesses are able to be "found" on the internet, ensures that they never run out of leads, and helps them to trans-form these potential clients into lifetime customers (and raving fans!).

A retired US Navy Video/Film Cameraman and Director and Still Photographer.

A weekly contributor on local marketing on CNN.

VP Business Development, The Local Marketers Association Pg. 7

Suzanne McIntosh, VP Business Development, The Local Marketers Association

Suzanne McIntosh has over fifteen years experience in sales, marketing and business development within multiple industries. Through creative campaigns, she helps our clients improve their brand awareness, customer loyalty, retention rates, drive more traffic and leads, reduce overhead, and improve their overall return on investment.

Contact me for a Strategic Business Marketing Consultinfo@mainstreetusamarketing.com817-637-7016

The Four Pillar Secret to SuccessPg. 7

The Four Pillar Secret to SuccessAuthored by Lorinda Snyder

There's no denying that local businesses face a harsh economic climate these days. To survive, a business must have a system for attracting and maintaining a steady stream of customers. This book outlines just such a system.

Based on fundamentals that been proven time and again to fuel growth, Boost Your Business: The Four Pillar Secret to Success is the result of the extensive experience and knowledge of The Local Marketers Association, a worldwide network of top local business experts dedicated to helping small business owners reach their maximum growth potential. Members of TLMA are all local business owners themselves and know first-hand what it takes to survive and even grow when the going gets rough.

The Four Pillars System is built around the concept that every successful business has four strong pillars at its foundation: REPUTATION, making sure the business is putting its best foot forward, REACH which concentrates on attracting new customers, RETENTION which focuses on keeping current customers engaged and REFERRAL, the Holy Grail of marketing, turning your customers into raving fans who are eager to spread the word about you.

Businesses that are struggling have one or more of those pillars out of alignment. Turning the business around and seeing strong, sustainable growth is a matter of evaluating and optimizing the pillars. This book will help you do that.Get your copy today!

Contact me for a Strategic Business Marketing Consultinfo@mainstreetusamarketing.com817-637-7016