Janaury is starting out with a bang for us at CitiDexLI, Inc.  Interest in online advertising by Long Island businesses is certainly picking up.  Most of our customers are small businesses that serve customers in a sepcific set of neighboring towns or  across all of Long Island.  These types of businesses realize that advertising in a local online directory are cost effective way to reach customers when they search for local businesses. In this Long Island blog we will be shifting our focus a bit.  We have several bloggers now covering life on Long Island in ways that fit their particular blog.  We hope to add more Long Island bloggers each month.  So please contact us soon. 

Many small businesses would benefit from blogging.  Its a great way to actively engage potential customers and maintain a relationship with your current customers.   In this Long Island Blog, we’ll be shifting our focus to writing about practical online marketing tips and tools for small and meddium businesses (SMBs).

This month’s New York Enterprise Report has a great article by Mithcell E. Tobol, “How do I determine which marketing tols are right for my business?” , that helps you put the options for online advertising in the right context.

Mr. Tobol is president of Tobol Group, Inc., a marketing, advertising and public relations firm in Port Washington, NY.  He offers some great marketing principles and strategies that apply to any sized business. Tobol focuses his advice on practical tactical suggestions that are especially useful for medimum size firms and small businesses (SMBs). 
 
The first prinicple is: get to know your customers.  And just about any business talks that talk today.  The key to success is walking the walk along the path that Mr.Tobol suggests.

The second principle is: develop specific measurable goals for your business.  This second step is more difficult but it is actually the first step in walking the walk.

The next step is make a media list.  Focus on the specific media and marketing tools that best fit your target customers.  And then the hard part - set a reasonable budget that you can afford and a budget that is realistic for your specific business goals.  In future posts we will focus on how business blogs can be used as force multipliers.  They can magnify the effect of your advertising placed in print, radio, TV and other media.

Mr. Tobol suggests using multiple media for both major types of small business marketing goals: lead generation and brand awareness.  And he ends with a focus on timing.  Timing really is the key to any marketing campaign. 

When a small business takes control of its own online content development, either through website copywriting, search engine optimization techniques or blogging, it can maximize the effects of timing in any marketing campaign.  We will be exploring these issues in details in future posts.

If you want to get direct assistance from us please review our Long Island advertising soultions.  We know our limits and our target market - we focus on Long Island’s small businesses.  If you are a large company or medium enterprise we suggest you review our full page for one of the leading advertising and public relation firms on Long Island.