Google Voice Basics: About Google Voice

Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones — a phone number that is tied to you, not to a device or a location. Use Google Voice to simplify the way you use phones, make using voicemail as easy as email, customize your callers’ experience, and more.

Google Voice isn’t a phone service, but it lets you manage all of your phones. Google Voice works with mobile phones, desk phones, work phones, and VoIP lines. There’s nothing to download, upload, or install, and you don’t have to make or take calls using a computer.

Google Voice will let you define which phones ring, based on who’s calling, and even let you Listening on voicemail before answering the call. We use smart technology to route your calls. So, if you’re already on a Google Voice call, we’ll recognize it and use call waiting to reach you on the phone you’re on.

Features

Basic Features of Google Voice

Bad News…

Google voice not on iphone

Back in July Apple pulls Google Voice off iphone:
The long-awaited Google Voice application for the iPhone has been officially shot down by Apple.

There were a scattering of reports on Monday, and then a Google spokesperson confirmed it: “Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users–for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.” Click here for the article

FCC looking into Google Voice

Google argues that it is not subject to the same laws because it’s a software company and because Google Voice doesn’t replace phone service; it still requires phone service to work properly. It addressed the inquiry in a blog post Friday.

“AT&T apparently now wants Web applications–from Skype to Google Voice–to be treated the same way as traditional phone services,” wrote Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington media and telecom counsel. “Their approach is what a former FCC chairman has called “regulatory capitalism,” the practice of using regulation to block or slow down innovation. And despite AT&T’s lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America. This is about outdated carrier compensation rules that are fundamentally broken and in need of repair by the FCC.”

So now it appears that the FCC will attempt to referee the matter. Google’s no stranger to federal authorities at the moment, with just about everything it does falling under the watchful eye of an administration that seems determined to examine dominant companies in the tech industry. Click here for the Article

But good news for Verizon Customers (Like Me)

Two Verizon Android phones coming in 2009

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10368458-265.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related

The Android devices that emerge from this partnership will have Google’s Android Market preinstalled on the phones, said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless parent company Verizon Communications.

The companies declined to name hardware partners for the initial devices, but Motorola and HTC have been rumored for months as the initial phone makers expected to work with Verizon. Beyond that, it sounds like Verizon and Google expect to release other devices, such as Netbooks or perhaps an ebook reader that will run on Verizon’s network.

Some nice possible phone that Verizon may use….

The New Marketing Buzz Words We Need to Understand, Incorporate into Our Vocabularies, and USE to Do More Business

Every so often technology introduces something that changes the way we do business and the way we live our lives. We are currently in the midst of an explosion of ideas, models, and methods of doing business.  I want to expose some of these new techniques to you.  You might be familiar with some of these terms while others will be completely foreign to you. However, most of the concepts are deep seeded in some form of traditional marketing with a new high tech interpretation.

“Going with the Flow Marketing“ or the other name I like is “Intuitive Marketing”. This is the more natural way of marketing. For years we have been talking about Contrarian Marketing or swimming upstream. That’ s daring to be different, standing out in the crowd,  or just disagreeing with conventional thinking. That still works but something has changed.  There is a new term we are starting to use, “that’s intuitive.” What that means is “Does it make sense? Is it logical? Is that the way it should work?”

We started saying intuitive when it comes to websites. We want to be able to navigate a website easily. We don’t want a detailed list of instructions on how to maneuver a website. If it requires that, we are gone.  Now this concept has spread to just about everything else we do. It has to make sense.

This applies to the way we use the internet to search for the things we want. We have another new or at least modified term called, “Inbound Marketing”. That just means that we establish a system that fosters customers looking for us as opposed to us reaching out to customers to sell them. The difference between outbound and inbound marketing is the difference between running an ad in the local paper and hoping someone comes into the store. That is “Outbound Marketing” as opposed to creating a “landing page” which is just one page out of your website that is dedicated to a word, phrase, or concept that your perspective clients might be looking for.

“Why do we need landing pages? Don’t we just want all of our traffic to go through our home page?”

That would be nice but it also doesn’t go with the natural flow of things–it’s not “intuitive”. Here is a simple example. Say you own a men’s store and also sell merchandise on the web. (Selling on-line just makes what I am about to say even more powerful.)  You sell casual and dress shirts, pants, blazers, suits, belts, all accessories, etc. You, as a store owner, want your customer to enter your website through the home page, see all of the things that you sell, and have them click onto the page for dress shirts.

There are a couple of problems here. If I am searching for dress shirts, what do you think the chances are for your home page coming up in the top 10 to 20 spots? Slim at best on a “natural search”.(That is any type of search other  than a sponsored link, a.k.a. a “pay for click” campaign where we pay Google or whoever a fee  to have a small add  on various searches.)

OK, so you don’t want to create a separate landing page and you might not need it IF you have a page on your website that just talks about Dress Shirts.  It could be the intro or title page to the dress shirt section. So if you were to “beef up” (add more applicable content that someone might just be searching for), you will have increased your chances of someone finding you, naturally.

Isn’t that the same as advertising?  Perhaps it is advertising but in a very different way.  All you are doing is removing the barriers and streamlining the possibilities for someone who is looking for what you sell to find you. It’s natural and intuitive because you are only appealing to people who have an interest in what you sell. You are not interrupting them, or trying to convert them into buying something else.  You are just making the prospect’s journey easier while putting your business in the most favorable light. When you think about, it’s really a form of “Pinpoint Marketing” (a way of reaching just specific groups or individual customers). It is really the same thing with a different twist or application.

Going along with this more logical or intuitive way of looking (searching) for things, consider this. Using the same menswear example about someone searching for dress shirts, think about all of the ways we could refine a search for dress shirts. How about French cuff dress shirts, monogrammed dress shirts, spread collars, button downed, silk, cotton. Polyester, all white, two tone, and what about all of the different dress shirt vendors? There are a multitude of possibilities for creating simple landing pages that could help someone find what they want and what you sell. You are making it easier for the customer to buy from you.

These pages don’t take long to create. 15 to 20 minute maximum if you have the right software to use or your website was created by someone who has set up the ability to add simple pages. Think of the possibilities. We can start to have websites with hundreds of simple pages.  Sound crazy? It’s happening every day. It’s just a new way of thinking and looking at the world of on-line marketing…Inbound Marketing.

It is clear that my efforts have been helping the bike shop, but the great thing is this week I have been filling in for a friend and client at his Upholstery Shop, while he takes a long deserved vacation. It has been fun being dropped into a new business, but the real gratification is that I am seeing people calling and coming into the upholstery shop who found the business searching on the internet.

Dave doing the real work of Retail?

My clients tell me every day that new customers are finding them through our joint efforts on the internet, but I am always one person removed from the activity. Taking over the upholstery shop for a few days is validating the variety of people that use Search as their main way of finding businesses and services.

Creating HTML newsletters & emails should always be created to communicate with your customers. They are a greater effort and should be sent from a provider that can track clicks to understand customer interests and effectiveness. Keep your newsletters interesting, short as possible and deliver greater content on your website. HTML communication should always drive customers to your website.
Click here to get a list of providers of Email Marketing Providers

It is simple when they want the same thing as you.  That is probably 30-50% of your customer base.  But you want more customers to give you their contact information.  How do you do it?  The answer is simple in the abstract, find something that you will do for them by sending them an email.  Here are some straight forward reasons to ask for emails from your customers:

We will email you when the work is done
We will email you to remind you of your appointment in the future
We will email you your receipt
We will send you a cool newsletter every month
We can email you a PDF of the form you are asking for
Give us your email and we will send you the information you want

I think you get the idea. The point is ask for emails and tell them why they should want to

Constant Contact is more mature having more templates and a better html editor.  It is more expensive, but if you are new to creating emails and want to have the best tools possible this is the one to go with.

MailChimp is not as robust, but does have a starting free version for less than 500 contacts and 3000 email sends.

For most retail stores it probable location is either in their the Point of Sale System or their accounting system.  The only issue is that where ever you keep it, make sure you can export the customer information as a file in standard formats like .csv or Excel spreadsheets.  From their you can import your customer information into other applications to send newsletters or other promotional efforts.

Here is an example.  At El Camino Bike Shop their blog both highlights the shops interest in 29er mountain bikes and the expertise of one of its owners, Will Schillenger (Otherwise know as 29er guy).  The blog gets about approximately 40 to 60% of the traffic of the shops main website, and by linking product information from the blog to the store website drives traffic to the store. El Camino Bike Shop has seen customers out of their normal geographic region call and make the trip to El Camino Bike Shop to purchase products because of their blog.

El Camino Bike Shop website
El Camino Bike Shop Blog

But what if I told you that you could double your traffic to your website, bring new customers to your shop, bring old customers back to your shop more quickly to purchase new bikes, make a little extra cash, and is a free service that only takes about an hour a week, then would you be excited?

The key is to use Craigslist to advertise a small number of your present customers consigned bikes and direct the Craigslist Ad to your website.

If you are having a promotion, add information (and a link) to your promotion at the bottom of each Craigslist ad and you see a substantial rise in interest for that promotion from people that would never have become aware of your shop or promotion.

There is a reason that newspapers are going out of business and it is Craigslist. You need to use it in your everyday promotion of your bike shop.

Craigslist menu for bicycles

The different types of alerts include news (the latest news articles about your topic), web (the latest web pages that contain your search terms), blogs (posts that contain your search terms), comprehensive (the latest results from multiple sources), video (the latest videos with your search terms), and groups (posts from your Google groups). It’s up to you whether you’d get daily, weekly, or “as it happens” email alerts.

To start you building your blog content you can simply take exerts from the original content Google Alerts provides (Make sure you reference the writer) and at the end create a link such as “Click Here for the article”. If you are a reseller (as most retailers are) bring content & reviews from your vendors and place it on your blog.

Leveraging Google Alerts can be a easy way to add posts in business blogs, for those of you with writer’s block. Click here if you want to see an example of using others articles on the Web found using Google Alerts, to build your blog.

It can also be the first line of defense in protecting your online reputation. It is good to know what people are saying, both good & bad, about you in the Wild West of the Internet.