Mashable.com’s Adam Ostrow has a great article about the benefits of Social Media Marketing and makes a great case as to why companies and organizations need to take advantage of this unique online marketing service now more than ever.  Softline provides high value integrated marketing services including Social Media Marketing for some of the country’s largest companies so feel free to contact us if you would like more information on how we can help you connect with your customers.

See the graph above for some great stats and check out Adams article after the jump.

(more…)

Recently I conducted a telephone survey of 200 local business owners in and around Seattle, WA. I compiled a list of electricians and then Googled them to see if they had any ranking in OneBox. For example: “Electrician Kirkland, WA” and if they weren’t listed I called them. Now I wasn’t trying to sell them anything I just wanted to ask their opinions about online marketing.

After I worked past the initial, “No I’m not interested in what you’re selling” surprisingly they were very willing to speak with me. Of course they all said they knew it was important to be on the internet but what was very clear was (1) they did not fully comprehend how exactly important it is and (2) they didn’t have a clue as to how to start.

Before I go on I will be honest with you, there were a few of them that told me they didn’t like the web, they didn’t want to be on the web and that their business was strictly word-of-mouth. Oh and then they would say, “Yeah we’ve got more business than we can handle.”

(more…)

We have alot of experience working with medium and large business on their online marketing initiatives. Whether there looking for Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Management, or any of our other services it generally a smooth process as they have come to understand the value of online marketing and the increast in sales it can lead to.

We are a privately held company, a business that we treat more like a family,and know many people who have small business’s but have no knowledge of advertising online or why it even matters. We decided to reach out to them and test out a new product we had in the mix developed for these types of business’s and while they still don’t completely understand how it works, they understand the internets power as every single ePowerPackage we have set up has led to increased sales and walk in traffic.

Our local marketing package is an all in one solution for companies that dont have a marketing team and dont want to complicate things. They know they need to be online and they want someone to handle it. The truth is that its more important than ever to be found online. With more and more people turning to online search instead of opening up the Yellow Pages( I will get several emails now from Yellow Page Industry types ). In fact, over 55% of local searches are now conducted online with over 65% of those people purchasing local goods and services.

This numbers cant be ignored and with a package like this that not only provides a website, but provides Google, Yahoo!, & MSN local submissions, lead generation, and much much more a small business simply cant go wrong.

Normally, I take the opportunity on our blog to talk about general topics but we are so excited about this product, its performance and what it can mean for small business in this economic environment that I simply had to talk about it.

Find out more after the jump