Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Like many entrepreneurs when I started, I had no budget for marketing, but what I had was time on my hands.  Here is one of the things that I did that made a real positive impact.

 I made a list of my competition and very specific keywords that described my business.  Next I took these words and phrases to here:

http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en&t=1

 This is the Google Alerts site.  Now when there is an article, press release, anything written that Google indexes (which is a lot!) that meets my criteria I get an alert.  Now you need to start part two.

Send the author an introductory email and let them know about your business, invite them to check out your site and your product.  Do this every time you get an alert that`s revelant to your needs.

This does require a lot of leg (finger typing) work, but it’s well worth the effort.  In my experience if you don’t have the money, you usually have the time.  So take the time to do this and it will yield results.

I initially did this with my business and it worked wonders.  Recently I’ve been very lazy about following up on my Google Alerts.  One of my New Year’s resolutions is go get the marketing ball rolling again.  This idea should work for anybody regardless of the type of business that you are in!  Also keep a list of the contacts for future use, like sending press releases.

If you were going to do just one marketing initiative in the New Year this would be my recommendation.  Well I think everyone should do more than one initiative, so my recommendation is to do more than one.  This one is low/no cost in dollars.  However be prepared to invest time.

So this is my free PR, marketing idea, what’s yours?

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Daniel the Denim Doctor

So how do you get around this:

The Google Services are made available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You may not use the Google Services to sell a product or service, or to increase traffic to your Web site for commercial reasons, such as advertising sales. You may not take the results from a Google search and reformat and display them, or mirror the Google home page or results pages on your Web site. You may not "meta-search" Google. If you want to make commercial use of the Google Services, you must enter into an agreement with Google to do so in advance. Please contact us for more information.

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Regards, Warren Endes Owner/Operator www.wedustuff.com wendes@wedustuff.com

No I am not violating Google’s rules.

I’m not advertising to anyone.  I’m sending an introductory email always commenting on their article (that Google flagged for me) and talking about how my product compares with the article (if applicable)

I’m not reformatting, displaying, or mirroring any Google data.

If I were targeting Google sites then maybe I’d concede.  However…Google leads me to 3^rd party sites (nothing related to Google) so right away I’m out of Google’s reach.  Even then I almost always need to do extra research.  For example:

Does the author regularly write on this topic?
Is what they are writing about relevant to me?
If not, whom do I need to contact?
What is their email address (very rarely posted)?
Personalize an email by putting their article in context.

So while Google Alerts starts me on a path.  I need to do much more to complete my strategy.

The TOS (Terms of Service) that you quoted not only applies to Google Alerts, but to *ALL* Google services.  Everyone here (I’m willing to bet) has used Google to do searches for leads, contacts and other research.  So then I guess everyone is guilty. 

No I’m not violating Google’s services.


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Daniel the Denim Doctor

Daniel,

Great Idea.  I do this already but not to the full extent that you described. Thanks for the additional ideas.

 

Those Google guidelines are in place so that others do not reuse their search results, or word for word alerts and reprint / repost them on the internet as your own.  It is just like any plagarism or copyright law.

Otherwise if you can use any of the info for commercial or private use as long as you are not using their content and reusing it. 

People use google everyday for business purposes so I highly doubt that they would discourage normal use of their search terms as long as you are not violating any copyright laws.

 

Thanks for the validation!

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Daniel the Denim Doctor

I don`t see this as a violation either. What a great idea. However, I can immediately see the hours could stack up as you execute such a marketing plan.



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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

I put a banner in the rear window of my car stating the name of my web domain.  Every time I drive somebody sees it!  Oh, and it should be up and running shortly since I`ve hired a new web designer...then you can critique it!

jillybeans

I just wanted to post a Thank You to this poster for the link to Google Alerts - my company is relatively narrowly focused and it has been such a great research tool for me!  I get about 6-10 links each day, incl. blogs, and it`s very manageable.  So thanks again!

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Allison www.AudibleHeirlooms.com