Are You Yelping?

I have been playing a little bit, a very little bit with Yelp. It is not my main push as a marketing tool that being a B2B company but still I play just in case I have a client that needs to be there.

But how long will Yelp be around? Does it, can it make money?


Well, it doesn't! At least, not yet.

The company lost $7.6 million through the first nine months of the year on revenues of $59 million. They (industry experts) think if should become profitable, it will be due to advertising, specifically local advertising, which stands at at $40 million and is 70% of its total revenue through the first nine months of this year. Brand advertising stands at $13 million is 22% of revenue. And "other services," like Yelp Deals, remnant ads, and revenue from reservations is 9%, or $5.4 million.


Here are the most important details:


Revenue: $22 million in Q3 2011, up from $12.6 million in Q3 2010.


Yearly revenue: Yelp brought in $47.7 million in revenue last year. It brought in $58.4 million in the first nine months this year, compared to $32.5 million in the first nine months last year.

Profits: Yelp lost $3.8 million in Q3 2011, up from 2.9 million in Q3 2010.


Yearly profits: Yelp lost $9.6 million last year and lost $7.6 million in the first nine months this year.


Visitors: Yelp had 61 million monthly unique visitors as of the end of its third quarter.


Reviews: Yelp has 22.4 million reviews on the site as of the end of its third quarter.


Advertising: 71 percent of Yelp's revenue comes from local advertising, compared to 21 percent from brand advertising and 8 percent from "other services.

"Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website accounting for more than half of the visits to our website from Internet searches during the nine months ended September 30, 2011," the S-1 filing reads.


CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1 percent of Yelp. The company's investors own 61.1 percent of the company.


Yelp has $23 million in cash, down from $27 million at the end of 2010.


And here are some interesting tidbits:

42 percent of Yelp's customers are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 33 percent are between the ages of 35 and 59.

45 percent of Yelp's customers are college graduates.

Nearly half of all reviews (23 percent each) are restaurant or store reviews.

PayPal co-founder Max Levchin owns 13.8 percent of Yelp.

Yelp has spent $4.4 million on infrastructure this year so far, up from $2.9 million in 2010.


Yelp's business could be adversely affected by "earthquakes, fires, floods and other natural catastrophic events and to interruption by man-made problems such as computer viruses or terrorism."

Yelp says it does not intend to pay dividends in the future.

Yelp employees outside of Stoppelman only own 14 percent of the company. Stoppelman, his investors and Levchin own a collective 86 percent of the company.

Yelp's employee with the second-highest ownership is chief operating officer Geoff Donaker at 1.6 percent.


Larson Notes & Satire: My yelp numbers are going up? Are my prospects there? Yes, prospects can be everywhere. It is all in how to touch them in a way they want to be touched.


As Henry Ford once said, he knew half of every dollar he spent on advertising was wasted. He just didn't know which half.


So where should you be advertising and marketing everywhere and anyway you can be 90% effective. The key is to be as effective in each area you are involved in so you own that channel. A multichannel attack works because one size or one approach does not fit all. Need help call us.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


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Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
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http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Cold Calling Brings Relationships

With so much emphasis being focused on Social Media Marketing these days it is easy to under estimate the power of the phone for establishing deep long lasting customer relationships.

What I think you need to remember is that of all the channels you can use for Marketing, Cold Calling is still one of the FEW ways if not the only way to be proactive in your marketing attack. Everything else waits for the prospect to contact you! With cold calling you go out and contact the prospect. In addition it is one of the only marketing tools that will give you an instant two way conversation with your prospect to allow you to secure a long lasting relationship.


So here are 5 ways to set up and focus yourself on attaining desired cold calling results:


1. Define your criteria. In any sales and marketing attack you need to define your target as narrow as you can. The more specific the better. Narrow nitch yourself


2. Have a preset agenda. You need a road map to get where you want to go. If not a “script” have an outline of where you would like to guide the conversation towards. Use open ended questions (how many times have you heard that?) and pointed questions. Might as well find out if their needs are real and what their time table is on your product or service. 1 day, 1 week 1 month 1 year, ask and find out.


3) Keep it relevant. To be effective you need to be relevant to the prospect. If it’s not important to them they will not care. So before you pick up the phone ask yourself, Why am I calling and why should they want to hear about it. If you cannot answer this question, you might as well not even pick up the phone in the first place and go on making that paperclip chain.


4. Have a voicemail strategy. Ya sorry but you got to figure that at least 75% of your calls are going to voice mail. That is just the way it is. Have a 15 to 20 second voicemail advertisement ready to go. If they want it, if they need it, they will call back.


5. Integrate your marketing channels. As a standalone you can and will get activity off your telemarketing attack but… if you can put it together with a planned multichannel attack you up your odds of success. You give them ways to approach you that they might find more suited with their nature.


Larson Notes & Satire: Telemarketing works cold calling works that is why we do it. If it didn’t people would not pay us to pick up the phone on their behalf and make the calls.


As stated best is a multichannel attack because one size or one approach does not fit all. Need help call us.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


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Try our ghost blog writing service!


Howard Larson

Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Lead Gen: When Where How

You want new customers, I want new customers, everyone wants new customers. (Well not everyone, believe it or not but in some of my calls some owners tell me they don’t want any. Go figure.)


Lead Generation is a game, cat and mouse, back and forth, win or lose, give and take. If you’re in it you want to be taking more than your giving, I would hope. And if you want your business to survive you need to win more than you lose. Even in losing you want to win.


So how do you win in a mostly loosing game, and you will lose more that you win.


1) The Rule of #2. It’s ok to be number 2. Now you’re asking yourself if I have lost my mind. No its still there, I think. But let’s think about this. You out there going after a new account, which btw belongs to a competitor who wants to keep it. Now think further that you the owner or the account and 2 other competitors also want THAT account. Yet you would really like to have that account as a customer. Use the rule of #2, which is be the number 2 supplier (even if that does not get you any sales) so when #1 messes up (and we all mess up at one time or another) the account already knows you and your capabilities so you can take it over.


2) The Little Things: There is no magic formula in getting new accounts, no magic pill or secret potion or wand waving (sorry Harry Potter but there is no such thing as magic). It’s just doing a lot of little things right for a long long time. Then once you get a lead nurturing it till it grows up to be a real customer.


3) Don’t get tired of your message. As you’re out there in the land of self promotion you are going to get tired of saying the same thing over and over again and again. You might but guess what your prospect wont. To them, it is new and or you are being consistent which to me means you are a candidate for a reliable supplier. Just don’t lose faith in your message. You don’t change horses midstream.


4) They need to know you to buy from you. You can’t play turtle, hiding in your shell and expect people to find you to buy from you. Fact is, if you’re not out there promoting yourself, people will not buy from you. Period, end of story!


5) Look for yourself. Are you a needle in the haystack? When was the last time, or first for that matter, that you did an online search for yourself, of for that matter did a keyword search for yourself? Well get cracking, if you can’t be found they can’t buy. And oh yes, don’t forget the power of the landing page.


6) Engage yourself in Social. This for the average to above average sales or marketer is no longer an option. The creation of a powerful Social presence centered around your marketing strategy will come back to pay major dividends. Work it right you make friends and money at the same time.


7) KISS. Yes, Keep It Simple Stupid. We all or so it seems, seem to go into the world of complex or industry jargon at times. Know your place. You need to be able to talk the talk yet at the same time, make it so everyone, even my 86 year old mother can understand.


Larson Notes & Satire: Two interesting things happened yesterday. First we got 2 new accounts, always exciting. One was thought Online and Social Media marketing the second from just sort of hanging around till the project dropped, which took 9 months. Go figure. But what we do and say does work; you just need to have the consistent staying power. We are now getting 4 to 5 new prospects just from our online social marketing a week. At the same time we still use the “old way” to go out and find customers.

Second is I got a cold call from a company who had down a “inspection” of my web site and were telling me how they could fix my errors and get me listed first on Google. After I got the guy to SHUT UP, I said yes my site age makeup errors but did he do a key word search because if he had done a keyword search he would have found out that I am listed 1st page on Google, Yahoo and Bing for my key word strings and if he could get me higher than 1st page we could talk wherein he went back into his canned speech on how our page had all kinds of errors and on and on and on. He did not listen nor did he care what I said or even wanted to pretend to listen. Now while I might care that my website has errors, fact is, it is coming up on page 1. Then 1 minute later a young lady, from the same company called saying the same thing. Told her I just talked to someone form their company, I am number 1 and get me OFF their call list NOW! Dare I say it was an Indian Company using auto dialers? If that is what you want, they do work cheep.


At Larson & Associates we don’t work that way. We listen and respond to what the customer or prospect says. What is important to them is what is important to us.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Better Phone Results

Getting more hits or sales off a telemarketing campaign can be difficult and daunting to say the least.


It is somewhat a science in setting up a good campaign and then it becomes an art form. An art form you ask? Oh yes, only 7 percent the communication process is based on what's said. 38 percent is based on style of speech and 55 percent on body language.


Basically you have 2 different ways to get a better ROI. First is to decrease the cost per order (CPO) and the second is to increase the amount of product of service ordered.


To decrease CPO you can either lower the cost per lead or increase the conversion rates. Both of which can happen through practice.


Most phone leads come from off line sources. List managers, SIC numbers, direct mail all play a pivotal role in your leads list. You can slide into web, and social media to get a different kind of lead but it still comes down to picking up the phone and making the call.


Then there is your call team. There are 3 basic kinds of phone agents. There are assassins who burn off all the leads off the list that they don’t get. The prospect then hangs up saying nasty things about you and your mother. Next there are the order takers. These people can be great if all your company needs to do is present an idea or product they can’t live without, also good for inbound telemarketing campaigns. And last there is the Sales based call agent who can take the time to ask questions and find out what their needs and trigger points are. Put this together with a good script and solid need based questions and you have a winner.


If you are out to sell more by increasing your revenue per order, you need more of the Sales based agents who can ask hard (or good) questions to cross sell your company. Or do you need to do a transfer program where the lead is passed off to a sales expert who can answer all the hard questions and leave the telemarketer as a lead in person who does not need to know EVERYTHING about you, your company and your product or service. If you’re selling technically orientated services or products you can use the transfer to have a telemarketing agent, who is not as trained to make the initial call and them pass off the call to the sales agent with their knowledge and experience.


Then look passed the initial sale to the repeat sale. You want that customer to have a good feeling on what happened so that the keep coming back for more, and yes, more is good


Larson Notes & Satire: We thrive on the transfer method of telemarketing. If we know 30% to 50% about you, your company and your product or service we usually have enough information to set up a call back with a more knowledgeable person on your staff. This is one of the best ways I know of to get a faster higher ROI out of your experienced sales staff. Use them for the hard stuff and use us for the easy things like making cold calls, with no call reluctance. Maybe that is why we get our clients into companies like Disney, Microsoft. We don’t care. We just pick up the phone and make the call.


Next!


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates


https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

The Daily Deal

Is it the right thing to do? Does it work? Do people or your kind of clients respond? The daily deal has become one of the hottest marketing trends going on in marketing today. Thank you web and social media marketing. Heck we at Larson & Associates are using it. Groupon, LivingSocial, Larson, are all hammering the Daily Deal idea. If done right it can be a good thing as 74% of those using daily deals do make a profit, but that does leave 26% losing money. If they are doing their deals via Groupon or Livingsocial there are commission costs deeper than just the cost of the enticement. You can try to do it alone, but the drawback is exposure.

Yes, location, location, location! Or is it exposure, exposure, exposure!

So what makes the daily deal so exciting is the impulsiveness of the buyer. There it is, buy it or lose it. Do it now! As I see it the only real long term reason to push into the daily deal is to drive brand recognition and customer loyalty. Sure if you need some quick cash it can help as well but don’t we all want long term growth?

Larson Notes & Satire:  Do you want a spike in your sales. Try a daily deal to find out. For today Larson has 2 going:

The winning state of the day is Montana. If you have a company in Montana and sign up for a telemarketing pilot program (3 weeks minimum) of at least 15 hours a week minimum by 4:30 central time today 10/18/11 there will be no set up fee for your program. http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

Today's "Build Illinois" county is White County. If you have a company in White County Illinois and sign up for a telemarketing pilot program (3 weeks minimum) of at least 15 hours a week minimum by 4:30 central time today 10/18/11 there will be no set up fee for your program. http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

Both have bought in new accounts that I think we probably would not have gotten.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Facebook Time

If you did not already do it, do yourself and your business a favor and make a Facebook Fan page. If you can make a Social Media Profile page you can make a Facebook Fan page.



In looking at Time Spent On web sites even the most callus person has to admit that Facebook not only rules but Is Growing At An Astonishing Rate.

In the United States we now spend roughly 16% of our online time on Facebook. Just stop and think about that and what are your chances of being seen and where?

In Q3 2010, the number was around 10%. That is not good for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, which are getting hammered. Of those four, only Google had any increase over the last year but not even Google could come close to matching Facebook's growth face paced growth.

Larson Notes & Satire: It all somehow works together. If done right push one and you get responses on the rest.

Why? Ask the little web spiders not me. As for spiders, start liking and embracing them. They are your friends. And as for friends try liking and becoming a fan of my companies Facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans .

I thought I was a late comer to Facebook as I clung to my love for Myspace but now that I’m there (and the rest of the world) I have not just embraced it but am working it like a mad man. I have often said, “Be where you are” and for now, I’m on Facebook.

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Power Drive Your Search

We all understand how powerful it is to own the top spots in a key work search. The higher up you are usually means you are going to get some good quality hits on your site. On the same line of thought, a keyword search is one of the few chances where you have someone just stopping by (your web site) and basically saying “This is what I am looking to buy.”

So some of my more aggressive customers have come to old Uncle Howard and asked, “How can I get more without killing my budget?” And to solve this problem I put a plan that wedded Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Marketing a little differently. First I had a landing page created for the project, packed with all those juicy key words in content, Meta tag key works and title. Then launching that I constructed a Social Media attack around that message basically pushing it into and through their Social Media world so when we were done, they actually owned the first page of a keyword search.


Now it you push it to its logical conclusion you will use those same keywords and content in email, mobile to direct mail to yes your telemarketing attack and hammer those words home.


Now add a pay of click?


Larson Notes & Satire: Can it be done? It already has. I have always preached that you need to work within your budget and your means to hold and work your media at near 100% efficiency. Do that day in and day out and you will control your position and your destiny.


“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”


Want to be a Blogger but can’t write?
Try our ghost blog writing service!


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws/
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate


P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.