A recent small business survey found that over 90 percent of companies rate their website as their most valuable marketing tool. The survey noted that the design and management of the company website, as well as keeping it optimized for the major search engines, was the single most effective marketing strategy currently being used.

Another interesting point revealed by the survey was the fact that businesses find social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are excellent sources for driving website traffic.

I know you’re probably thinking “yeah, so what, I’ve known that for years.” But the survey went on to find that, while companies recognize that their websites are their most important marketing tool, and they realize social media is a great way to drive traffic, they’re still not quite sure how to turn that website traffic into solid sales leads. Which is kind of ironic, because the majority of businesses surveyed also said that generating good, productive leads was their number one marketing concern.

So, the use of social networking is seen as an excellent method for creating and then developing sales relationships. The immediacy of the internet as a communication platform allows for prompt interaction with prospects that turns web traffic into potential sales leads. And, while the businesses being surveyed couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact number of leads that came through their social media efforts, they still weren’t ready to abandon social media and website traffic generation.

After all, even a small increase in leads that are generated through the company website can have a big impact on the balance sheet. Even if these leads are entirely anecdotal.

Most businesses acknowledge that, with the proliferation of mobile devices, the trend for doing business online can only increase into the future, making web marketing strategies the most vital aspect to a company’s marketing. Not to mention that it is also one of the least expensive media for advertising that is available. Because websites are able to be updated easily and as regularly as is needed, the internet has an obvious advantage over the more traditional media.

So it seems that many small businesses are embracing the web and social media as a crucial marketing tool, and they realize the importance of having a web presence, even though their results are not definitive.

Does any of this sound familiar? You know your website is critical, you know you need to maintain a social media presence to get traffic to that website, and even though you can’t exactly account for the ROI, you just know you “need to be there”?

If that sounds like you, it might be time to create an online marketing strategy. There are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind when developing your strategy.

Most important is to focus on the customers and to make doing business as simple as possible for them. Make sure that you clearly demonstrate the value that your product or service has for potential customers and use the content of the website to generate leads by directing buyers straight to the information that they are interested in.

A good strategy will continue to adapt and evolve with its marketplace, making it vitally important to keep up with the latest internet trends and networking sites. Consider your typical sales cycle when planning to convert web traffic into actual sales and create a strategy that will move online prospects through that cycle on an automatic basis.

Finally, if developing marketing strategies and web design aren’t your strong points then don’t be afraid to get specialist help so that you can be sure that your company’s website and internet marketing is as effective as it can be. (Please feel free to contact us if you’d like to discuss how we can help.)

Photo by woody1778a

If you’re like most of our small business marketing clients, one of your goals for 2012 is to increase sales. And if you’re like a lot of the prospects we’ve been talking to lately, there’s a good chance you’re concocting some lavish marketing campaigns in order to reach that goal.

If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought, the good news is that you don’t have to get fancy and extravagant with your marketing and advertising materials in order for them to be effective. In fact, some of the most successful marketing is often a bit “dull”.  So, rather than trying to get overly lavish, just keep these few tips in mind:

Focus On Only One Point

Many small business owners try to get more bang for their buck from their marketing campaigns, so they try to cram in as much as possible. They try to sell multiple items in one campaign, or speak to several different audiences in the same message.

But your marketing campaign will be more effective – and actually easier to create – if you focus on only one point at a time. That doesn’t mean you’re limited to selling only one product or service to each customer.  In fact, after the first sale, you should definitely start marketing the next product or service to your new customer. Just do it one product at a time.

Present your Message in Alternative Places

You don’t have to get extravagant and blanket the entire universe with your message in order to reach the limited few who might be interested. Instead, go to where the limited few are.

Sure, if you place your billboard on the side of a bus, it’s going to get seen by a lot of people. But how many of those people are going to care about what you have to offer? And do you really want to spend the money reaching those people who don’t care?

Instead of macro, start thinking about micro-messaging. Break your target audience into small segments and present your message to these micro-populations instead.  Do you have a client segment that are avid knitters? Start posting in the Knitting and Needle Work community forum. If you notice a segment of your clients all go to the same church, place an ad in the church bulletin. By creating many smaller segments, you can still reach a large number of prospects, but you’ll be doing it on a micro-scale – and spending micro-money. Adding up the expense to micro-advertise in multiple places will still be less expensive than one big bulletin board on the city bus. And it will be more effective because it will allow you to create a more targeted message.

And speaking of targeted message, that brings us to our third point…

Make the Conversation a 2-Way Street

When creating extravagant marketing campaigns, most businesses spend the majority of time and budget trying to get the presentation right. The photographer is high-end, the lighting has to be perfect, the copywriter is top-notch and on and on. They get so wrapped up in presenting their own voice, they forget about the customer’s voice.

But today it’s so easy to create an open dialogue between yourself and your prospects, and it doesn’t have to be lavish or expensive. Social media allows for two-way interaction before, during and after the sale. Your website can include a Q&A forum. Webinars and on-line presentations are even available now to fit within an entrepreneur’s  budget. These channels are all relatively easy and inexpensive, and they speed up the “know, like, and trust” timeframe.

So when you start thinking about your 2012 sales goals, don’t get overwhelmed thinking about the over-the-top marketing campaigns you’ll need to create. Instead, scale back your message, micro-size your segments, and develop an open dialogue, and you’ll be amazed at the results you get within a much smaller budget.

Photo by Independent We Stand

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you have not written a marketing plan for your small business. Many entrepreneurs optimistically enter the business world confident that their product or service will sell itself. They presume that with good products or services word of mouth will be all the advertising they need. If only it were that simple! After all, without any form of marketing, how will your prospective customers know anything about your product?

This is where PR, or public relations, comes into play. You use PR to create a relationship with the public in regards to your small business. Public relations are vital to the success of your business. Businesses that have no PR tend to go unnoticed and ignored until the lack of profits drive them into ground. PR campaigns are often compelling because of the implied “social proof”. It’s easy and cost-effective, so don’t let your competitors be the only ones using PR tactics.

Reaching Your Target Market

With PR, you have various choices for spreading your message to your prospective target market. One of the best ways to get started with PR is by creating an email newsletter. Email newsletters are simple to prepare and they extend a continual form of communication with your clients and prospects. They can work right beside social media which, since it allows for direct communication with the public, can also be labeled as a method of PR. An email newsletter is really one of the most fantastic tactics for creating efficient PR. Two things you want to consider when planning your newsletter are consistency and quality.

Besides newsletters there are many more traditional strategies that will help your business get noticed. Distributing a press release is probably the most widely-used method of PR. Like email newsletters, press releases are inexpensive as well as effective. Local newspapers are constantly on the lookout for local news stories. There are sections in every local paper, such as the lifestyle section, that are always interested in showcasing local small businesses.

TV coverage is another method of public relations. Local news crews are known for working with small business on their campaigns. Stories that would entertain a wide audience have a better chance of getting television coverage. Try to think of ways you can tweak your story to have a wider appeal, or to tie into current events.

Another great tactic to add to your PR campaign is radio coverage. Just as local television news stations are always looking for small snippets to fill the morning run, so are local radio stations. Radio stations are often easier to target than television shows since their audience generally fits a particular demographic.

Writing Your PR Release

A media release is basically a write up, sent to media outlets, in order to announce your news. Simply sending your media release is not a guarantee of press coverage; but without one, you are certainly guaranteed no coverage!

Your media release can be constructed in similar fashion, no matter what type of coverage you’re trying to get. First and foremost, it’s imperative that your story is news and not a sales pitch in disguise. Keep in mind, you’re trying to connect with your audience through the use of a human interest story, not by directly selling your products or services. Your story should have wide appeal, or should be specifically targeted for the media outlet that you’re sending it to. Your story should be factual rather emotional, but still appealing and interesting. If you think creatively, you should be able to find a news angle for many of your regular business activities. If you can tie your media release into a current event – even if the event is not directly related to your story – you will have a better chance of getting the story picked up.

Public relations is a great tactic to add to your small business marketing plan. It is easy and inexpensive, and one of the quickest ways to get information about your business, your product or your services out to the general public.

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When you start working with a small business marketing consultant, one of the first steps you’ll take is to identify your business goals. Goal setting will transform your business. A written goal is a commitment that turns a dream into an intention. A dream is a wish, but a goal is a declaration that you’re willing to pay the price to be successful in your business. The price could be overcoming limited beliefs and deciding to invest time and effort until you attain your desires.

Goals Will Create Structure in Your Small Business

Goal setting for your small business will impact your employees’ performance. There’s no denying that your employees’ performance is instrumental in your business success, and setting goals (and making them public) is a way to tell your employees what you expect from them.

For employees, goals outline expectations and rewards. For managers, goals create a structure to direct their employees. And for your business, goals create purpose and direction.

Goals affect everyone involved in your company, creating a measurement to strive for and a destination to reach. It allows everyone to evaluate whether they are getting closer or falling short of your desired outcomes. Without this information, it can be extremely hard to determine what improvements can be made and what changes should be implemented.

When goals are met, your employees should be acknowledged for their roles and they should also be rewarded for their efforts. Failure to acknowledge and reward your team will result in discouraged employees who will lack the motivation to meet the next goal.

The Power of the Mind in Goal Setting for Your Small Business

When two or more minds strive toward a goal, numerous ideas arise that move your entire small business forward. When you and your employees work on a goal, it affects everyone’s conscious and subconscious minds.

While the conscious mind will be able to frame questions and provide a plan, it is the subconscious mind that will begin to come up with solutions. Problems will dissolve and business obstacles will be removed when the subconscious mind comes up with unexpected solutions.

7 Guidelines on How to Set Your Business Goals

If you’re woking with a small business marketing consultant to set your goals, chances are he or she will have a proven process to guide you. But if you’d like to try your hand at outlining your business goals on your own, smply follow these 7 guidelines:

1. Your goals should be specific. This will empower both the conscious and subconscious mind. Vague, fuzzy goals cause confusion. People are not motivated to find solutions unless they have a clear sense of purpose.
2. 2. Your goal should not be abstract. A goal that can be imagined is one that can be visualized and acted on. Unless you can clearly articulate your goals, and make them tangible in some way, they will not become a reality.
3. 3. Your goals should be believable. In other words, they should have some basis in reality. If, for example, your company has never reached six figures, setting a goal for a million dollars is unbelievable.
4. 4. Your goal must be realistic. You must have knowledge, skills, and resources to reach each goal. If you or your team don’t have these, then you should at least have the means to get them.
5. 5. Your goals should be measurable. How do you know if you have reached your goal unless you have ways to measure your progress? A business, for example, can measure progress statistically by the number of new customers served, by the volume of products sold, and by the percentage of profit earned.
6. 6. Your goals should be a cooperative venture. Everyone in your business should have a role to play in its success. They should have some control over this. Goals should create a sense of team spirit and cooperation because they serves everyone and everyone has a role to play in achieving the overall goal. If there is no control — if, say, the goal depends entirely on market forces — then it is not a realistic or achievable goal.
7. 7. Your goals should be non-conflicting. Goals that work in harmony with each other will succeed and goals that conflict with other goals will generally fail. Thus, you should have a single, major goal and sub-goals to support it.

Summary

Goal setting for your small business is creating an engine for it to progressively grow. This will create a vision for you and your employees to consistently do better. By using the 7 guidelines, you will be able to structure goals that will have a high probability of success.

Facebook is an excellent tool to add to your small business marketing. It offers small business owners many wonderful ways to build relationships with prospects and customers. Your business page (aka fan page), in particular, makes it easy to dialogue with your target audience.

By being more engaged on Facebook, and having a more interactive following, you’ll increase your EdgeRank, which will help you appear more prominently in your followers’ news feeds.  Here are 10 strategies to engage your followers and take advantage of the many benefits of News Feed.

1. Develop your own unique voice. This will help brand you, as well as differentiate your small business from your competitors.

2. Serve up diverse content. While it’s tempting to systematize your posts, making it easier to update your content, you risk becoming predictable and boring.

You can diversify your Facebook fan page posts by:

• inviting guest posts by business experts
• using multimedia instead of just text
• adding company or product trivia
• publishing polls and surveys
• offering how-to tips and techniques.

3. Measure what’s working and what’s not working. You can do this by noticing the number of Likes you get per post, the type of feedback you get via comments, and the emerging trends. Using various tracking methods, you can decide what posting tactics to repeat, what to eliminate, and what to tweak.

4. Do everything manually. While automation does save time, both fans and News Feeds can usually detect automated postings, especially if they correlate with your Twitter updates.

5. Avoid sounding like a corporation. This basically means personalize your approach. Instead of just talking about your company and its products, services, and internal news, go off-topic. Chat about things not related to your small business. Offer seasonal greetings. Sound human.

6. Facebook pages with photographs and videos always do well. Both readers and the News Feed algorithms respond favorably to them. So be sure to add these periodically.

7. Empower your fans. Find ways to make your fans feel like participants, rather than just readers. By making your fans feel valued, you will increase engagement.

8. Take advantage of targeting. This means that you should tailor your posts, contests, surveys, etc to your various market segments.

9. Ask your fans questions, ask them for small favors, and ask them to share their content on your page.

10. Test everything you do. Test what days work best, what times, and what type and quantity of posts appeal to your fans.

Increasing your Facebook Edgerank takes time and commitment but it’s definitely worth the effort. Map out a strategy for staying engaged and you’ll be reaping the benefits in no time.

When it comes to small business marketing, most entrepreneurs are interested in “going viral” When we talk about viral marketing, we’re talking about a message that spreads, almost like it’s contagious. Viral content on the internet can be an image or video or article that can easily be spread through social media or by word of mouth.

Every marketer wants viral content. After all, who would turn down the opportunity to have your message spread far and wide with basically no cost or effort to you?

But developing this viral content isn’t always easy. If you’d like to increase the chances of your material going viral, just follow these few simple rules:

Great Content Reigns Supreme

To be worth spreading, your content has to go beyond “good”; it has to be great and it has to add some kind of value. It might be humorous, or meaningful, or educational or informative.  Obviously, the idea of “meaningful” is going to depend on your audience and your topic. But if your blog (or podcast or video or image, etc) is simply a rehash of all the other content that is currently published on the internet, there is very little chance that your content will end up spreading.

Captivating Your Audience is Essential

Your blog has to go beyond just keeping your reader’s attention. You have to get your readers involved. Ask questions that will cause your readers to think. Offer quizzes and surveys and encourage your readers to respond.  Web surfers today are savvy and cynical;  if your content is not engaging enough to hold their own attention, surely they won’t be inspired to pass it on to others.

Putting Yourself in Your Readers’ Shoes Will Help

Think like your audience as much as possible. What will grab their attention? And what will hold their interest?  What will have them so enthralled that they have no other choice but to pass it on to others? You can review a few other blogs in your niche and see what people are commenting on. What topics seem to draw the most attention and reader response? These might be good topics for you to capitalize on.

Making it Easy on Them Might Help

If you want your readers to share your content, make it as easy on them as possible. Include “share this” links, Facebook “like” buttons, “Tweet This” icons, and whatever else is applicable to your audience. It’s OK to prod your readers a bit and encourage them to spread your content virally.

Slow and Steady Will Win Your Race

Gaining popularity through word of mouth or social networking is going to take time. Don’t expect an immediate increase in the number of click-throughs and blog readers. You’ve got to hang in there and give the relationship with your new readers some time to ripen.  Don’t give up and don’t abandon your efforts too soon.

Sometimes There’s No Accounting for Taste

Unfortunately, we can’t totally control what (if any) of our materials will go viral. You might write a brilliant blog post that outlines the step-by-step cure for cancer but the video of your cat teasing your goldfish will get ten times more traffic. In the long run, we just need to embrace any viral marketing that we’re lucky enough to get, and then do whatever we can to take advantage of it, even if it is a silly video of your kitty.

Photo by aussiegall

It’s no secret that Facebook is a great place to market a business, but there is one secret that you may not have heard: it’s not enough to just create a fan page and ignore it. Just like a retail store, a Facebook fan page is all about the customer’s experience. A great page will draw lots of visitors, and a poor page will drive away traffic.

Here are a few ways that you can use this concept in your fan page:

First impressions count. Retail vendors know that they have to catch your eye in the 30 seconds it takes to walk past their store. In the same way, you need to grab your fans’ attention as soon as they arrive. Above all, make sure that you have attractive overall design with great pictures.

De-clutter. Did you ever walk into one of those shops that were so crowded with merchandise that you could barely navigate through the claustrophobic aisles? Do not replicate this experience on your Facebook page! If you have lots of content, use pop-up dialogs and careful layouts so that readers can make sense of your page immediately.

Make it easy to recommend you. If you spend enough time at a mall, you’ll notice that the shoppers are all carrying their purchases in logo-embossed shopping bags. They’re recommending their favorite stores just by walking past you. Take a cue from them and make it just as easy for visitors to recommend your products. You can do this by adding a “Like” button or embedding an “invite your friends” box. You can also add a list of products to your page, so fans can indicate exactly what they like best.

Make the call to action obvious. Don’t be like those big department stores where you can never find the cash register or the fitting room. Make sure that your page has a big, obvious call-to-action image right on the landing tab, so that visitors don’t have to hunt through your information in order to join the fan club.

Give them an incentive to join. Think of department store credit cards, which give you a discount for signing up. Leverage this idea in your fan page by offering special content to people who join. The flip side of this idea is excluding non-fans; consider making your landing page a “teaser” page which promises more content to official fans.

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Remember what it was like to fall in love for the first time? All through your first date, you found yourself gazing soulfully into those big beautiful eyes as you poured out all of your deepest thoughts. You had so much to say! Twenty dates later, you flopped down on the couch next to your honey and said, “Pass the popcorn.” Then you turned on the TV and that was it for the evening.

Blogging is like dating: there comes a point when you feel stuck in your daily routine, and you just don’t have anything interesting to say. When that happens, it’s time to try rekindling the romance. Here are a few tips to beat the writer’s block that eventually threatens every blogger.

Take a break. It’s a truism that to write well, it helps to “write what you know.” If you’ve already written everything that you know about, maybe it’s time to get out of the house and learn more. Take a little time out from your blog and try something new. Have a snowball fight, or go swimming, or take a walk in a new place.

Write what you don’t know. Visit a few friends, or pick up a book and find inspiration from someone in a far-away time and place. Learn about the things that other people have experienced, and give them a voice in your writing.

Just do it. If you absolutely have to deliver content today, just start writing. Write whatever comes to mind, even you start by saying, “I have nothing to say.” You can also try writing about what’s right in front of you. Is the cat napping on your keyboard? Are the kids crying? Is dinner burning? Write about it.

Create something else. Creativity is like water: if it’s blocked in one place, it might trickle out somewhere else. If you don’t have anything to write about, perhaps it’s time to get out your crayons or your woodworking tools. A new project will let new thoughts bubble to the surface–and who knows? Perhaps you can write about your new project when it’s over.

All of these solutions have one idea in common: writer’s block is the result of being stuck in a rut. The best way to get past the block is to step out of the rut. Don’t try to walk through a writer’s block; instead, step around it.

Photo by Ed Yourdon

When it comes to small business marketing, it’s hard to ignore Twitter. These days, every third marketing blog is about marketing through Twitter: what to tweet, when to tweet it, and how to get people to follow it. But for many small businesses, all of that advice is useless if you’re tweeting to people on the other side of the world. Unless you’re running an internet-based mail-order website, you probably need to direct your tweets to your nearby neighbors.

Luckily, there are several ways to find local Twitterers. Perhaps the easiest way to begin is to simply use the Twitter Search feature on Twitter’s website. Simply click on the “Advanced Search” option and scroll down to the “Place” category. Type in the name of your city and state and choose how far out the search should spread. For more frills, try Nearby Tweets.

Another easy-to-use site is Twellow, which is a “yellow pages” for Twitter users. Their Twellowhood is a clickable map that lets you zoom in on the largest Twitter communities in your state. On the LocalTweeps website, users who add a #lt hashtag to their tweets can see them sorted into a city-specific feed. As of this blog entry, the site appears to be most effective for users in large cities like Chicago, IL. Happn.in is also a useful site for Twitterers in large cities, because it tracks Twitter trends. If you live in one of the 52 cities it tracks, you can use it to link up to people who are following a trend related to your business.

Another great trend-tracker is Twitterholic, which keeps track of the most-followed tweeters. You can use the site to drill down to the most popular people in your area, who could be useful to follow. You can also use Twitter to meet local Twitterers in person. This is an excellent option when it’s time to invite your pals to your new store opening. Twitter Search, Tweetups on Meetup and Twtvite are all useful sites for sending invitations.

Of course, there are also quite a few apps for finding local Twitterers. They include Twinkle, Twitterphon, Tweetie and Twittelator. Twinkle and Twitterphon are free, and Tweetie and Twittelator are available for a nominal fee. Adobe AIR also offers an app for Mac, PC or Linux called Twitter Local, which can send a real-time stream of the tweets in your area.

Photo by roboppy

One day in 2009, Google asked itself: “What if telephony were reinvented today?” The result was an app called GrandCentral, soon renamed Google Voice.

Does Google Voice really make your small business marketing more manageable? It’s especially useful for small business owners who need that slight edge over their competitors. Many of its features work especially well for brand-new business start-ups.

Here’s how it works:

First, you’ll need to register for Google Voice, and select a virtual telephone number anywhere in the country. Now start using it for any of the following functions.

This app digitally records, transcribes and distributes voicemail. The transcripts are not perfect, but they are reasonably comprehensible.

The revolutionary thing about this feature is that it makes your voicemail searchable. No more misplaced calls from the White House! For a business that receives hundreds of calls a day, having a sortable function is a great time saver.

You can refuse calls from certain people or organizations, or receive email announcements of messages. You can place free domestic and inexpensive global calls with no limits. You can even monitor voicemails as they come in, and pick up if you wish. But wait, there’s more! You can start recording an incoming call with the touch of a button.

Google Voice forwards calls from your virtual number to any of your existing phone lines. However, you will need to give all of your business contacts the new number. If you have a concentration of associates in a particular region, pick an area code that they will recognize. No geographical limitations!

You can also create specialized greetings for different groups of associates. Suppose that you are waiting to hear about several grant proposals. Not only can you stipulate contacts whose calls you will accept immediately, you can also record specific greetings should those calls go to voicemail.

Other types of calls, such as client inquiries and bill collectors can be shunted to applicable departments using email. Effortlessly transfer calls between cell phones. Or, if a voicemail is especially germane, you can embed it in a variety of media to share and distribute.

If you plan to take a well-earned break, tell Google Voice to accept calls from your business partner 24/7. Or, if you want to accept calls only during the business day, no problem.

Google Voice offers the ultimate in flexibility. As they put it: “Less annoyances and more awesomeness, for free.”