Marketing Solutions Interview - Christine Van Buskirk

It's my pleasure to introduce Christine Van Buskirk, Founder and Co-Owner of "Girl Shop Spot" and "See Vacation Rentals", as well as Co-Owner of "Zo Organized".

She's a Web Marketing Expert, and has had marketing experience with the St. Louis Rams front office as well as SamSung Electronics.

1) Hi Christine, thanks so much for granting us an interview today.

Please take a moment to introduce yourself, and tell us about your business "Girl Shop Spot".

Thank you. Girl Shop Spot is designed for women who don't want to search endlessly for their products and services. We provide them with everything that they are looking for, and make their online shopping a natural and enjoyable experience.

2) Your website is quite versatile and offers some really smart shopping. How did you ever come up with such a great concept?

I've always wanted to support the local cottage business community online, by creating a website where marketers and entrepreneurs could truly connect with their customers on a more direct and mutually beneficial basis.

My goal has been to help small businesses catering to women, by providing them with the information and tools to promote both offline and online sales that deliver quick and effective commerce solutions.

3) In one of your recent articles, you mentioned that long-tail keywords rank better in the search engines and target more customers.

Given that major keywords are difficult to rank high on while producing great traffic, and that long-tail keywords are very easy to rank on while giving just a little traffic - Do you think that a combination of both strategies would be the best way to build a SEM campaign?

Yes. Two of the key factors in search engine marketing is to generate targeted traffic and attain high search engine results. This is accomplished by building links and writing excellent keyword optimized content.

Niche keywords are competitive and hard to rank high on, but attract the volume of traffic needed for business. On the other hand, long-tailed keywords have very little competition but are easy to get a high Google PR.

Although the traffic will be small, it will be prospects that are in the buying stage. These two strategies together will give you a strong and diversified marketing campaign with great results.

4) I was intrigued by one of your statements you made in "Remove the Dread of Social Network Sites", ". . . marketers have to shift their mindset from optimizing their website to optimizing their web presence".

How insightful of you! The solution that you provided was Web 2.0 and SEO. Could you elaborate a bit, Christine, on the Web 2.0 and how to implement it?

Web 2.0 is simply the second generation of web development and web design. One can see the new trends of development through the social networking sites, video-sharing sites, blogs and so forth.

People love to comment and talk about the latest news; watch videos; share pictures, etc.

By joining social networks such as, you can meet people who are interested in your products and services. Any type of video, review, or news story can have a viral effect, which would provide you with a lot of free publicity.

Another effective technique would be to participate in online discussion forums and blogs that are relevant to your business niche.

You can help people by answering some of their questions or by giving advice. This is a great way for people to get to know you, and to find out about your business.

Social networking is a great way to leverage customer service. And even a bigger plus are those social sites that incorporate SEO into the sites web pages.

There are many other online options that may even come closer to interacting with your customers. Statistics show customers rely on reviews often when deciding to make a purchase. Many sites are dedicated only to reviews, while others include reviews somewhere within the ad/web page.

Write a review of your own, co-op with other businesses, ask your best customers their opinions and get their consent to post. Most importantly, join the sites that you can directly interact with customers and promote business to consumer (B2C) and vice versus, where customers can come in contact with you.

Girl Shop Spot is one such site with its Shop Talk function, e-mail owner and friends links, reviews, built-in SEO function, etc.

5) You created a new marketing method for measuring advertisement activity, called Pay-Per-Interaction. Could you tell us what this is and how it works?

The GSS PPI is a cost-effective marketing tool, and provides marketers with more online shopping options and affordable marketing solutions.

Customers don't pay for the guaranteed ads unless they see real interaction and interest in their ads. All parts of the interaction, between prospects and ads, can be measured accurately to to learn where they are coming from and how they found you down to specific keywords, what they were interested in, and if they proceeded to contact you or to your site to learn more and make a purchase. You can review interaction reports, make ad changes, and budget simultaneously if needed.

6) Before we bring this interview to a close,Christine,would you like to tell us a little about your family?

When I'm not working, I enjoy spending time with my husband and co-owner of Girl Shop Spot, Jim, and two sons. Jim has over twelve years of experience in website development and marketing. He holds a M.B.A and a B.S. degree in Information Systems.

7) We have enjoyed talking with you today, Christine. Before we close, are their any parting words you'd like to share with our audience?

Passion. Build your business around your true passion and your customers.

Loving what you do makes it that much easier to please your customers, and build your dream.

Customer service and satisfaction are the two most important factors in running a successful business.

Christine has provided us with some insightful marketing solutions and great advice.

Thanks again Christine, for being with us here today.

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