Judy Kirkland, Echo Point Marketing Partners

As co-founder of EchoPoint Marketing Partners, Judy Kirkland creates systems and toolkits that empower businesses to make marketing far simpler and far more successful.  Drawing on an award-winning track record in B2B, B2C and B2G markets, Judy teaches clients how to develop an “echo point”  — their own unique value proposition and brand — to determine what to spend, what to say and what biggest-bang tactics to use in online, print, broadcast and face-to-face marketing.

Before co-founding EchoPoint Marketing Partners, Judy enjoyed more than twenty years of success as a nationally known marketing consultant and copywriter for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. In addition to her YodelPoint.com blog, she is a regular contributor to newsletters and ezines in the fields of franchise marketing, custom media, search marketing, and how to market small businesses and professional services firms.

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Remember the Yellow Pages slogan “Let your fingers do the walking"? Well, forget walking! Instead, check out these web sites that let your fingers do the digging, prospecting and streamlining to help your business grow.

1. See what’s new at all your social networking sites

Business networking is a great business-building tool, but it takes time and effort to check individual updates at Facebook, LinkedIn and your other communities. Save time with Flock, Mozilla’s social web browser that gives you one view of updates on all your favorite people and content from all your favorite sites. www.flock.com

2. Get the latest on any person or topic

Google Alerts will notify you automatically any time Google’s search engine picks up new information about a particular person, business or industry topic. It’s great for keeping tabs and creating opportunities to touch base with clients or prospects. www.GoogleAlerts.com 

3. Research new contacts and other professionals

Met someone at a networking event? Discovered a new competitor? Just search a person’s name at 123people.com and instantly see relevant photos, videos, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, social networking and Wikipedia profiles and more. www.123people.com 

4. Use blog postings to boost your web site traffic

A great way to build your visibility and value is with a presence on blogs, especially local ones. But how do you find the right blogs? Comment Kahuna simplifies the process by pulling up ready-to-clink links to relevant blogs. It also makes it ultra easy to post comments and backlinks to your web site on all the blogs. An online video gets you quickly up to speed. www.CommentKahuna.com 

5. Find local prospects and partners

Want to team up with a local energy consultant to offer a seminar on the tax advantages of going “green"? Create a client-referral partnership with a nearby attorney? Market your services to a particular vertical market? Find them quickly using the BizNik local business networking site. Just pick a city, enter a type of business and you’ll see the names of relevant people within the BizNik community, along with their photos and profiles. www.BizNik.com

Minus profiles and photos, you can do the same sort of prospecting with a local search engine, such as www.Local.com.

6. Monitor the traffic at your competitors’ web sites

Which web site gets more visitors? How does your own site compare to that of a local or regional competitor? Did a company's media campaign pay off in web traffic? When does a competitor get the biggest number of visitors? Find answers to these questions and more at Compete.com. You have to register, but the basic service is free. www.Compete.com 

7. Remember all your different passwords easily!

It’s risky to use the same password for all your applications and online transactions. But keeping up with scores of passwords can be an unbelievable hassle. That’s why Password Safe is such a great solution for security—and sanity. You set up your user name and password list just once. From then on, all you have to remember is your one login to unlock Password Safe. Once you’re in, just click on a particular site or application and paste in that stored password. http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net