LocalProud is a discount card program to help vitalize local economies. Businesses offer discounts that are honored when consumers show their LocalProud card. They get to determine the offers and are able to change them via a convenient website…

Have you ever wished you could carry around a card that would be honored at any business who offered coupons? Well, we have which is why we’ve created Local Proud – a Coupon program that eliminates the hassles of finding, printing and organizing coupons.

This is the way of future discount programs and we are now bringing it to life. Consumers want great deals. Businesses want to offer great value. Now, Local Proud is bringing the two together buy offering an easy to use discount card called the Local Proud Perks card.

We are pleased to annouce that we have partnered with our first television station as well – an innovative thinker located in Buffalo, NY. WKBW is where you’ll find great deals in western upstate New York. Currently we are offering many deals in the Buffalo and surrounding areas.

The great thing is you can use the card or, if you’re old school (sorry:-) you can also print coupons from the website. Sometimes it take a little while to inform the community as to what a new value proposition is so in the meantime, you can still print coupons via Local Proud. We are adding new offers daily so keep coming back – we’re about to overtake the Buffalo, NY area!

I have always wondered how most people feel about loud TV commercials. I find them to be one of the most annoying things and always have different reactions to this scenerio. Recently, Harris Corp.

Did a survey about this very topic – loud TV commercials. The remainder of this article comes to us from Television Broadcast.com.

Harris Corp. reminds that it stands ready to sell volume-mitigation gear in the wake of federal legislation aimed at quelling loud TV commercials. The broadcast equipment vendor published the results of a telephone survey of 1,000 people, asking them how they dealt with loud commercials.

Not too shockingly, 41 percent turned the volume down. Another 22 percent hit “mute,” and 17 percent changed the channel. Harris further asked how they responded to those ads that blow them out of the room. Sixty-one percent overly loud commercials left them with a negative perception of the product being advertised. Thirty-eight percent said they’d be less likely to pay attention or consider buying the product. Another 23 percent said they switch channels (as opposed to the 17 percent considering volume only, not content). Only 5 percent said louder volume is more likely to make them pay attention.

Congress just passed a bill to compel the FCC to regulate commercial audio volumes. A companion bill is pending in the Senate. Harris’s pollsters said 29 percent of the folks in its sample considered legislation unnecessary, though 33 percent favored it.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 22.

From our friends at Online Media Daily

Most marketers “suck” at building out long-tail keyword campaigns, Avinash Kaushik told Search Insider Summit conference attendees in Park City, Utah, Thursday. During the keynote Thursday, Google’s analytics evangelist described how the long tail can pull in what he calls “impression virgins,” but most marketers don’t know how to take advantage of the opportunity.

The way to grow a company’s business is to have an effective long-tail strategy because it allows marketers to capture potential customers first.

The only way to find eBay in a search engine, organically, is to include one of the three keywords: “auctions,” “onlinesale” and eBay, said Kaushik. The problem with the strategy is that eBay’s growth has been flat for the past three years. Search aims to capture consumers who don’t know exactly what they want, but they don’t necessarily know the brand.

As people continue to change their search habits, the terms and words searched on, companies, such as eBay continue to slip in organic search rankings. People who searched on the branded company term “grow old and die.” Rhetorically, he asks, after they die, what are you left with and how do you create a new strategy?

A search engine query for the “best car for teens” doesn’t deliver organic results for Toyota, for example. That’s a problem, he says. Typically, a search for a brand requires the company’s name, but Kaushik believes marketers need to remain open to the long tail.

Companies could have a keyword strategy with hundred of thousands of keywords and still fail. Companies need a head and tail strategy. Marketers need to analyze the keyword and do the analysis before spending the money.

Google offers tools, such as the Search-Based Keyword Tool, that gives marketers insight into long-tail words. Not just for paid search, but for organic search, too. The application tells marketers the keywords to use, the competition for each keyword and what you can expect to pay for specific words. The tool also displays the current impression share for the campaign from organic and paid search. It gives marketers the ammunition to support a budget for paid and organic search.

The most sophisticated search marketers tend to be at small- to-medium-sized businesses because they don’t have roadblocks to success and are more likely to experiment. When asked about the larger companies that do online marketing well, Kaushik pointed to Macy’s and Target. “I’m very impressed with Target’s online and search strategy,” he says. “I have some insight into their analysis and bidding systems. They have a ways to go, but they are embracing experimentation. Macy’s also has become very sophisticated in the last six months for their online and attribution strategy.”

In politics, winning is everything. But why obsess about winning when epic failure is so much more exciting?
Here are ten excellent ways to completely blow it online in 2010. 

1. Start Late
Don’t want online support? No problem—just wait until the last minute to get rolling. Sure, some campaigns occasionally grow into Internet behemoths overnight, but most have to start slo-o-o-owly and build up over time. Like a retirement account, almost every list starts tiny before it gets big enough to matter, usually growing just a little bit every day. Think of online outreach as siege warfare, not the accumulation of many individual triumphs over a long period of time, not through a single bold stroke. Start recruiting now!

2. Steer Clear of E-Mail
In a world of Facebook and Twitter, who needs e-mail? Well, political campaigns do, at least if they want to tap much of the Internet’s potential to persuade people to donate money, knock on doors and make phone calls. Just ask Barack Obama, whose campaign relied on e-mail more than any other tool to communicate with supporters and motivate them to donate both cash and time.  

He and other successful online campaigners still use e-mail because it works. Just one example: Of the $500 million Obama raised online, roughly two-thirds came directly via someone clicking on a “donate now” link in a campaign e-mail. Of course, Obama had a couple million friends on Facebook and MySpace, but he ended the 2008 cycle with over 13 million addresses on his e-mail list, and by Election Day its members had received roughly one billion individual messages from his campaign. Though not much of a recruiting tool (except when someone sends-to-a-friend), e-mail absolutely excels at building and maintaining relationships online.

3. Ignore the Bloggers
Bloggers in their pajama-clad ranks can be annoying, particularly for political professionals who aren’t too pleased to have amateurs poaching on their turf. But who cares? Political blogs get read by the very activists and donors candidates usually need to reach.

While getting mentioned in a national-level blog can make a splash, state- and local-level campaigns should pay particular attention to local political bloggers. They’re more likely to focus on a legislative or congressional race, and you can help them fill their precious pixels by pitching a story idea or a guest article from your candidate.

Also, since your target often isn’t the actual blogger, but his or her readers, consider advertising on relevant blogs—blog ads can be very cheap, particularly for local or niche sites. And bloggers do tend to notice who buys space on their sites.

4. Don’t Use Google Ads
Speaking of online advertising, we all know that it doesn’t work—except when it does. In fact, Google Ads are a perfect match for most candidates in 2010, for two basic reasons. First, they’re highly targetable, and second you only pay when someone actually clicks on an ad. Google Ads are particularly effective as a list-building tool, sometimes yielding a four- or five-fold return on invest- ment, measured in donations.

Their targeting ability can be a real help, since you can not only zero in on your district but also aim different messages at different audiences depending on the content they’re reading or searching online. Campaigns frequently run Google Ads using their candidate’s name and that of their opponent as keywords, for instance, while a higher-level Google Ad blitz might target dozens or hundreds of different keyword/landing page combinations. Even when someone doesn’t click on a Google Ad, it’s still sitting there on the page as a branding element, complete with your message and link.

5. Avoid Facebook, MySpace and YouTube
E-mail may be key to maintaining connections with your existing supporters and donors, but online social networks like Facebook and MySpace are great places to fish for new ones. Your own campaign web page is a start, but encourage supporters to spread the word, too—each of your Facebook or MySpace friends is a potential recruiting hub within their own social circles. YouTube has a potential double effect, since you can use it as both a free video hosting site and as a social network in which to look for support.

As you connect with people on Facebook or MySpace, though, do try to move them onto your main activist list as much as possible. Hard political experience has shown that a good e-mail message to the list can have a response rate 10 or more times higher than a request sent over an online social network.

6. Ignore All Those Online Critics
Hostile bloggers, Twitterers and YouTubers can be a real thorn in a campaign’s side, particularly since you never know who’s listening to what they’re saying. But short of a comprehensive assassination scheme (not recommended), you’re stuck with ‘em. So what should a campaign do?

The best answer to a wave of negative online content is often to try to “flood the zone” with targeted information of your own, while also reaching out to individuals in the opposition to see if they can be brought around. For instance, if unflattering YouTube clips are dogging your candidate, post a bunch of your own videos on the same or a related topic, not only to counter the hostile messages directly but also to dilute them in search results. While you may not be able to turn an enraged blogger into a bosom buddy, a few e-mails behind the scenes could shift him or her from angry to at least neutral (a little access to the candidate wouldn’t hurt either).

7. Treat Your Supporters Like ATMs
Yes, the Internet can be a great source of political money, particularly when a campaign can aggregate small donations from a big list of individual supporters. But even the most enthusiastic donors may turn off the spigot if they get the feeling that all a campaign cares about is their money. Unlike bank machines, online donors give cash because they truly care about the candidate or the issues. Taking them for granted can be a quick way to convince them to take their donations elsewhere.

Taking a page again from Obama’s online playbook, try to mix your fundraising messages with other appeals or even with e-mails that are primarily informative. You might ask supporters to view a particular video and post it to their own blogs or Facebook pages, something that will help the campaign but that won’t cost your friends a dime. When you do ask for money directly, have a clear “value proposition” that explains how you’ll be using the funds and why it matters. Don’t forget to follow up with the results! People are a lot more likely to donate again if they feel that their past gifts have made a difference.

8. Twitter! Twitter! Twitter!
Not to pick on Twitter in particular, because it can be a great way to reach journalists, bloggers and individual activists, but it’s just one tool. Despite the hype, a relatively small percentage of people have embraced microblogging so far. Serious Twitter outreach can be ridiculously time consuming, potentially taking resources away from other vital functions, and needs to be balanced with all of a campaign’s communications needs.

Though useful for outreach, for instance, Twitter isn’t going to take the place of a website, an e-mail-based communications program or online video—though it can be a great way to bring some attention to them all. Put in the proper context, Twitter can be an online promoter’s close (but not exclusive) friend.

9. Here, There, Everywhere—But Not Integrated
Twitter’s over-hyped role in online outreach brings us to the real nut of the matter: If you want to fail, go scattershot all the way. But for online political success, try a different tack: Make sure the various pieces of your Internet presence work together.

For instance, do your online videos or your guest posts on political blogs refer back to your main website? Does your site clearly steer people toward opportunities to sign up and get involved? Once people are on your list, are you asking them to help spread the word through the online (and offline) channels they use most? Done correctly, the various parts of your online outreach will reinforce each other and the rest of your old-world communications work.

More broadly, online and offline campaigns should work together. For instance, many campaigns build their online activist lists at real-world events, taking advantage of every opportunity to sign up a new supporter. Don’t forget yard signs! Plaster your website address on every piece of material that leaves your office, even as you think of creative ways to put your list of online supporters to work in the real world.

10. Who Needs a Strategy? I Already Have a Website!
Repeat after me: A website is not a strategy. For that matter, nor is any other tool. Unless you know why you’re using a piece of technology and what results you want to get, it’s not likely to do you much good. Differences in levels of success between one campaign and another usually come down to how they use the tools, not which ones they choose to emphasize.

For instance, Barack Obama didn’t do much online that was entirely new, mainly employing technologies that have been around for a couple of election cycles, but his campaign almost always used new media with a clear plan, constant testing and ruthless efficiency. A little “strategery” can go a long, long way in online politics. In Obama’s case, it went a long way toward putting him in the White House.  

Colin Delany is founder and editor of Epolitics.com, which focuses on the tools and tactics of Internet-based political advocacy, and a communications consultant. His recent publications, “Learning from Obama” and “How Candidates Can Use the Internet to Win in 2010,” can be downloaded free at Epolitics.com.

There are many times or reasons that a small business will receive an influx of new customers — such as around the holidays for retail stores, during a new product or service launch, or after a local advertising campaign. 

While new customers are great, returning customers are even better.  Social media offers a number of opportunities to turn your new and existing customers into repeat customers and fans.

Hook New Customers on Social Media – The first thing you should do is direct new customers to your social media accounts.  A good way to do that is to incentivize that act of becoming your friend, fan, or follower.  Offer those who have just made a purchase a discount on future business in the form of a coupon, but tie it to your social media presence.  For example, retailers could let customers know at point of sale that if they become a fan of your business on Facebook, they’ll receive exclusive offers for discounts on future purchases.  Or customers could be given instructions to tweet out a special hashtag with a message about your store after they follow your Twitter account, and once that’s done you could send them a direct message with a special offer.

This is not unlike the common practice of taking down email or mailing addresses for mailing lists, but social media puts the user more in control since, when properly used, it is a two-way medium.  That’s actually an advantage to small business owners because active, engaged customers will be more likely to give you their attention. 

Concentrate on Building a Community – Once you have users signed up to follow you on social media sites, the trick to retaining them as customers is to keep them wanting to come back.  That means constantly engaging them with new content, exclusive offers, and information they can’t get elsewhere.  The best way to grow your community is to consistently offer them quality content.  That means forgoing the sales pitch most of the time.  

Customers join communities because of the quality of information and because they want to be privy to news about sales, coupons, deals, new products, or changes to your business (e.g., new hours, changed location, or updated menu items).  But that doesn’t mean they want to receive constant sales come-ons.  Delivering quality, helpful tips and information to your customers will make them more likely to want to do business with you and help build your online community.

Restaurants could share recipes or tips for properly reheating leftovers, for example, while plumbers could offer instructions for simple home fixes.  Retailers could offer honest reviews of new products, and doctors could offer alerts about the latest medical research or health care policy updates.  Get creative — what sorts of information can you provide your customer community?  This type of content will help to build your social media community and turn new buyers into return customers.

Play Favorites – Social media is a great place to promote your general sales and events, but you should also consider offering your social media fans exclusive deals that cannot be had elsewhere.  Online-only offers will keep fans returning for more and it will help to build a community around your store, service, or brand, which is what social media is all about.  

It’s certainly true that you should treat all of your customers well, but it doesn’t mean you should treat them all the same. Those customers that have taken the time to sign up as your fan, friend, or follower have shown a heightened interest in your brand that should be recognized.  By playing your social media followers with occasional exclusive deals or discounts, you can help turn customers into fans that will evangelize your business to others.  That way, you can turn new customers, into return customers, who in turn attract more new customers for you.  That’s the type of cycle that social media, when put to work properly, can help you create

Bought to you by American Express Open Forum – Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RBFried  

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Texas Mexican Restaurants… I love it when a real blogger takes notice of a nice website and takes the time to write about it. We’ve talked about Growmap.com before

Here is a little from our friends at Growmap…

“Texans who love Mexican restaurants have a new resource for experiencing the best Mexican cuisine in the DFW (Dallas Ft. Worth), Austin, Houston and San Antonio Metros. JoseGoes.com is a great example of how niche sites can offer great value to consumers through geo-targeted marketing while simultaneously creating exceptional opportunities for businesses”.

To read more Click here: http://www.growmap.com/texas-mexican-restaurants/

Now this is the kind of story I like to read… A newspaper company finally getting it! I found this story and of course, had to give my opinion. I wrote earlier about the merging of big companies and how, in my little brain, feel that those types of mergers are worthless to you and me.

But this little merger makes me scream with joy! In the big picture I’m not sure it really means a whole lot as far as competition but I like hearing about a small company with a great idea who though may not get hugely rich from it, they do get the reward of selling their idea. WikiCity has some great potential. There are many cities not yet populated within the site but it is farily new, less than a year old.

The Omaha World-Herald Co.’s flagship publication is the Omaha World-Herald, with a 200,000 Sunday and a 160,00 daily circulation. This opens the door for great growth opportunity and shows me that Omaha World-Herald is a great company. They are looking to the future, they know that they can’t grow just being a newspaper. I like that kind of thinking. You can read more here at Nieman Lab.

I read this article and thought yes, I needed to share this with our readers. Now I use Google and appreciate who and what they do, I am more of an advocate to use other search engines besides Google.

One of my business partners and life long friends is one of those people who thinks Google is the greatest thing ever created. Every day he is in the office, he will come in and show me something new about he discovered about them. Me on the other hand, not so much. If you read my stuff much you know that I support local and small businesses before I support the ones with all the money and power… I like to root for the little guy! Google is great, enough said!

One of the things I do appreciate about Google has nothing to do with their product but more of their beliefs in business. I’ve read the Google Story and will read anything that has to do with their business practices. So read this article about the 10 Things That Google has Taught us.

Let me know what you think…

JoseGoes.com is a nice looking niche website focusing on mexican and latin restaurants in the state of Texas. The idea is to completely define who your customers are, who the target is for potential revenue and the next thing you know, you have a business model. We really like this site!

What we liked about Jose Goes other than the business model is the fact of how easy it is to use and the potential opportunities it brings for restaurants. You can upload videos, incorporate your menu as a pdf, include pictures, google mapping and much more. Though the site is very niche, it certainly has a lot to offer both the restaurant and the visitor.

Though it looks as if they’re just getting the site up and running, It appears they have plans on incorporating television advertising as well. Just click on the video player to watch it.

We are going to keep an eye on this site… in the mean time, have a look for yourself – we’re including a link to the site itself and to one of the featured members. Good searching!