Our Future Blog Posts

After much gnawing and gnashing of teeth, we’ve finally determined what we’re going to do about blogging, when it comes to CruxBridge Media and OmniSolus.

At first, we thought we’d run a blog at each site, with some cross-pollination of posts between the two. We realized, though, that the audience for both blogs are exactly the same: Chief executives, business owners and those who work in sales and marketing at small- to medium-sized firms.

With that in mind, we’ve decided to publish all new posts at OmniSolus’ blog page. Here at the CBM blog, we’ll provide introductory paragraphs to each OmniSolus blog post, and a link to the full post at OmniSolus. We’ll also keep our previous posts up at this site.

We want to make sure everyone knows that CBM is not going away; on the contrary, we’ll have even more projects with our sister company, OmniSolus.

Thanks for reading our posts here, and see you at the OmniSolus site.

Combining Outsourced Sales and Internet Marketing

logos for CruxBridge Media and OmniSolusWhy we’ve changed …

… (more or less) from CruxBridge Media (CBM) to OmniSolus, and combine outbound sales and Internet marketing?

If you don’t mind, this is going to be what’s called a “we we” post, or one where I talk more about the company, than about the reader. In other words, I’m breaking the cardinal rule of blogging. I feel, though, that a full explanation is needed. I hope you’ll see why I’ve made this change, and how it can help your company. [Read more...]

Is Facebook Bad for Business?

"Find us on Facebook" graphic with "or .. maybe not" in scriptFacebook: Business and Sales Lead Generation …

Ahh, Facebook. The main topic of talk, when it comes to social networking. Still bigger than Twitter. MySpace slayer. A significant threat to Google for future advertising revenues, if this article is to be believed.

Two headlines this week revolved around FB and its apparent woes. One may seem like bad news on the surface, but may actually be good news for business looking to acquire leads and prospects. The other is decent in a “kinda, sorta” way for smaller businesses, and not so good for larger companies and brands.

[Read more...]

Online Sales Lead Generation

Photo depiction of sales lead generation processWebsites are about leads …

James Brown would say it loud:

Websites are about leads.

I often hear about how a company’s new Website is just fantastic because it’s got great artwork, a Flash-based graphic that flips, turns and does cartwheels, or has a spiffy video that automatically plays when a visitor lands on it.

To those people, I just want to say one thing. And I want to say it loud:

Websites are about leads.

[Read more...]

Google Page Ranking

Google Page Ranking, and Content… and the content you need to get high search engine results …

“How do I get a high Google page ranking for my Website?”

I get that question a lot when I’m out and about, after people discover what I do for a living. They think there’s some kind of simple “secret sauce” they can add to their sites to make them rank higher in Google.

The short answer is … yes, there is a secret sauce. But with most secret sauces you see made on Food Network shows, there’s some work and a few ingredients that go into this search engine optimization, or SEO oriented sauce. Unlike most Food Network shows, though, giving the recipe won’t take me a half hour, a ton of commercials, and incessant reminders of what the show is about.

First, you might need to change the way you think about search engine results. Then we can talk about Google-magnet content, and the SEO secret sauce you need to add to get your content into that vaunted first page of Google.

[Read more...]

Following Up on LinkedIn

LinkedIn Networking Tips for BusinessLinkedIn Networking Strategy Tips …

LinkedIn is one of the most valuable tools out there for business networking. Its one of those tools that has a lot going on with it. Because the site isn’t exactly intuitive and designed well, though, its members and users don’t really know all of the ways in which it can be utilized.

I could write an entire book on the site (a lot of people already have), but we’re only concerned about using it for business networking. It’s easier than you think, too. One of our tips, though, will require you to outlay a bit of cash each month to it. They can use it too; after all, they recently debuted on Wall Street.

You can read the rest of Following Up on LinkedIn at our Hand to Mouse Networking site.

My Site Looks Great, but Doesn’t Work!

Website Relaunches and DesignWebsite Relaunches, Design and Content …

When I’m out and about doing business networking, I’ve heard all kinds of variations on the following complaint:

My Website doesn’t work, and I don’t know why! I’ve invested all kinds of money in it, but something’s still wrong with it.

At that point, the person in question will go on to tell me that the site has been redesigned a dozen times in the past couple of years by great designers … but nothing happens. The business owner or marketing manager with whom I’m speaking is seeing zero return-on-investment (ROI) from the site, and they’re frustrated.

The problem behind a Website not “working” generally doesn’t have much to do with the design or with the actual operation of the site. A site is generally viewed as being “broken” because of one of three items, or a combination of them … which you’ll discover immediately after the jump.

[Read more...]

The Last Mile

Salesforce.com, Sales and Marketing …

When I attended last week’s Cloudforce 2011 expo in Washington, DC by Salesforce.com, I came away impressed by not only their base customer-relationship management (CRM) solution, but their extended functionality. Salesforce.com isn’t the same CRM system that your older sibling or maybe even your father used a couple of years back.

It impressed me so much, I’ve started to incorporate Salesforce.com into CruxBridge Media’s (CBM) own sales and marketing process. I also signed up CBM in the Salesforce Partner Program.

Through this new alliance, we have now filled in “the last mile” of the marketing and sales process for our clients: Taking a qualified lead and ushering it to a close.

[Read more...]

You’re Only Human

photo of Email Marketing Newsletter Mistakes

© iStockPhoto

Email Marketing and Newsletter Errors …

No matter what you do in life, there’s always a risk that you’ll make a mistake. When it happens in an email marketing or newsletter, the mistake is amplified, but it’s not the end of the world.

Such an error happened to me over the course of a couple of days, and it occurred in a very public forum: the CruxBridge Media email newsletter.

My mistake was not huge, yet it was bad enough that I thought I should let my subscribers know about it.

Such mistakes won’t mark the end of your company’s existence, or otherwise bring it to its knees. If anything, showing that you’re human, or your business is run by real people who every once in awhile make a mistake, might be just what your readers want to see.

What to do when you find yourself in such a situation … after the jump.

[Read more...]

What a Consumer Wants

Graphic of Website Relaunch and Marketing Concerns

© iStockPhoto

Website Redesign and Relaunch, and Conversion Rates …

For some reason, this lyric popped into my head when I first read a couple of mornings back about new research from our technology partner HubSpot:

What a girl wants
What a girl needs
Whatever keeps me in your arms
~ What a Girl Wants, Christina Aguilera

(Things like that tend to happen after I’ve had my first cup of coffee for the day.)

Companies relaunch Websites precisely because they want to keep their customers in their “arms”—in this case, on their sites and using them for e-commerce, lead generation, news-article views and so on. Their old sites probably weren’t getting the job done, and their sales, leads or pageviews were suffering as a result.

Or just as likely: Their old Websites were mired in 2005 (or 1995), and they needed a new, modern look that also fulfills a business purpose (see paragraph above).

What consumers want and what they don’t want in a Website, and how that can help with your Website redesign and relaunch strategy … after the jump.

[Read more...]