I’ve lost count of the number of blog posts, articles and Forum comments that I have read online espousing the benefits of social media and social networking sites for a business. Some of them are really insightful, some of them have some good case studies and some of them are just absolute crap. At the end of the day most of these posts all say the same thing. In some way they all espouse the three things that I mention below. For most business owners there are three goals that should be achieved from social media marketing.

Raise awareness of your business- Obviously, all marketing should have an effect on raising awareness of your business. The more you are out there, the more people should know of your existence. Social networking sites are a good way to spread awareness of your business. I mean, this should be obvious. There are 500 million people worldwide who have a Facebook profile. If Facebook was a country it would be the 3rd biggest in the world. Chances are that some of your target audience members are on Facebook. Your existing clients will probably be on there too and if they join your business Fan Page it will show up in their news feed and this will be seen by their Facebook friends. They may become curious, click on the link and become a Fan themselves if your offer is sufficiently interesting.

Increase traffic to your main website- Social media marketing is also designed, or should be designed, to increase traffic to your main website. This can be through Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter but also through writing articles and submitting them to directories like this one or participating in web forums and networking groups that are related to your niche. You need to make sure you always provide useful content on each of these sites and then subtly provide a link to your main website so that people will click on the link and visit your main site.

Engage directly with your target audience- Don’t underestimate the importance of the world social when it comes to social media or social networking marketing. You need to remember that you are dealing with people. Engage directly with your audience and have a conversation. Don’t preach and listen when your audience talks back to you.

If you want to engage in this type of marketing make sure you aim to achieve the three goals I have mentioned above- make sure you work to raise awareness of your business, increase web traffic and engage directly with your audience.

Anyone who is just beginning in the Internet Marketing business is commonly referred to as a newbie. You can always tell a newbie by how many questions they ask. An Internet marketing for newbie training, or membership site needs to be proven newbie friendly, or else it will not be worth your time or energy. You must be very clear, the idea behind internet marketing is simple and it does not take long to get the gist of it. Learning all the details, and the tools you need to use and the skills that must be mastered takes a lot longer.

Any Internet marketing for newbie program must have several key elements. If they are not there, then look elsewhere.

One. An important element is a membership forum. This is the place to ask all those hundreds of questions, and experienced members will answer. Everyone remembers what it was like when they were new. Without the ability to get questions answered, the newbie will give in to the overwhelming feelings they get towards this business and just walk away.

Two Newbie training needs to include free research tools. This could be part of a membership fee that was paid, or links in the training materials to online resources that can be used for free. Google for instance has a free key word tool that millions of people use. Membership sites will often have a key word tool that is part of the fee that can take the Google data and do even more with it.

Three. With all of the things to learn about Internet marketing, the newbie should not also have to worry about building a website, at least in the first months. Training should include directions to make simple pages using free tools like Blogger, Squidoo and HubPages. It does not matter if you do not know what they are, just be sure to find out if there are directions for using those in the training. In addition, a pre-formatted cut and paste website or WordPress blog would be helpful for a newbie to have.

Four. Unfortunately this one is hard to pin down, but any Internet marketing for newbie should include training with videos available that are designed for the newbie. Many times they say it works for a newbie, but if you have no background you will get lost. What you need really in a good membership training site is a variety of choices, so people of different experience can choose which training they need.

In summary, the newbie, needs the very basic, simple no frills options. They need to be able to print it out and to see the process live on a video and within one click get to the forum to ask any questions, or see if any of the questions have been answered already. Once they have the no frill directions they need easy to use, and free tools to get their first stabs a going and to feel successful at their Internet marketing for newbie life.

If there is a certain thing called noise pollution, there is also an advertising noise pollution that exists in the advertising world. Today, consumers receive a lot of advertising mails or messages per day which made consumers have difficulty in hearing what you have to say. It is estimated that each individual receives approximately 3,000 advertising mails or messages a day. No wonder why people nowadays seldom read the advertisement mails sent to them so, business owners have so much difficulty of advertising their products to their targeted clients.

As a business owner how can you break through this noise, get through the iron wall, and make your messages be heard by your targeted clients?

Almost all businesses are working double time to compete with the others which made the noise even louder. This kind of advertisement creates a big problem in the advertising world. Most of the business owners tried and experimented some gimmicks and strategies, and they even offer discounts or have sales. While others just simply accepted the fact that business growth for today is slow.

However, a few business owners have now realized the essence and value of an old marketing tool in relaying messages to their target clients. This marketing tool doesn’t need the beauty of famous celebrities or the genius of a very well known advertising company to market their products. What they only need is a pen and a nice paper to write on. The tool that I am referring is just a simple handwritten note. Yes, it’s true and in fact companies who uses handwritten notes in direct mailing is gaining a huge success.

* Somewhere in the Midwest, a restaurant owner used handwritten notes and sent it to his customers and got a high response rate of 20% afterward.

* With only 80 handwritten notes, a financial planner somewhere in the Northeast got at least a 6 people calling him and had 2 appointments set.

* By just sending 100 simple handwritten notes to some people, a non-profit organization got 51 people donating to the organizations’ projects and programs.

Why?

There is something special with handwritten notes. People can’t just throw them away. They can’t resist the urge of reading the content of those notes.

I think no one can dare throw a handwritten note without reading them, even myself can’t imagine doing that. I tried it once when I recently got a handwritten letter from my hair studio before. I changed my hair studio about 6 months ago because the one I’m using now is nearer to my house. I actually read it, though I already knew and had a hint that it is was just an invitation for me to go back as a client. Maybe there is really something special and magnetic with handwritten notes. Maybe because there’s a kind of human touch that goes with plus the feeling that you are important and valued by the one sending it.

So is it worth it to spend the time sitting down to write handwritten notes to your clients and prospects? When was the last time you have had a 6%, 20% or 50% response rate on a mailing?

Listed below are some tips to get a 50% response rate the next time you’ll be sending handwritten mails.

1. You should use the real and complete name of your prospect in your greetings. Do not use a greeting that is generic.

2. Writing your mail piece is very much advisable to get a 50% response rate. You can also use technologies today that can imitate your handwriting accurately and easily. Remember you can use computer generated font but it cannot assure you of giving you a 50% response rate.

3. Always make sure that in your letter, you are always giving your target clients a reason to call or respond to you.

4. Put something cute and beautiful on the card to catch their attention. It can be a picture or something that is really eye-catching. Bear in mind also to keep your mails appear personalized. Don’t use labels so that your clients won’t think that you are actually sending the same mails to hundreds of people though that’s really the truth.

Well. If you’ll try to take heed of these guidelines mentioned above, you’ll just be astounded at the high response rate that you’ll get. If not taken for granted, these guidelines can help you not to waste money down the drain.

The mobile channel is going through explosive growth. From a digital marketing perspective it forces us to focus on the client objective and what’s really important. Mobile changes and extends both the brand/business opportunity and the end-user experience altogether.

As a user you can now interact with web services that know where you are, which direction you are facing and what your interested in.

The innovative capabilities of the smartphone are changing the way we think and interact forever from the touch screen interface that users are familiar with to the location-based services offered.The market is moving rapidly with the evolution of the major operating systems and the devices that use them. Smartphones are expected to outnumber the global PC market in 2012. Think about that.

The iPhone, Palm and RIM operating systems all run exclusively on devices manufactured by those companies. The Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile operating systems run across numerous devices from a variety of manufacturers including HTC, Nokia and Samsung.

On demand services offering context aware rich media content have started to reach and engage a wider audience on the move. Wireless connectivity and device technology are penetrating markets worldwide at an alarming rate.

The number of smartphone owners in Europe is growing 38% a year according to research released by Comscore. Tech savvy audiences in Europe are moving from desktop to mobile for a larger slice of the day while the youth market has embedded mobile as an integral part of their lifestyle spending an extended period of time to browse, purchase, communicate, publish and share content on the move. The trend across developing countries shows a ‘direct to mobile generation’ who have access to content directly from a handset skipping the desktop environment altogether.

As smartphone technology evolves and becomes more sophisticated users demand more. Those in the creative digital industry need to embrace and integrate the mobile channel as core to their digital proposition and client business strategy in order to show a clear roadmap for future client use.

While the mobile is inherently a more personal device than the laptop, the opportunity for businesses to communicate and position smart services with vast mobile reach is compelling. We have a responsibility to think in a more mobile centric way to enhance both brand communications for our clients and to create a more engaging user experience.